I am returning to the place
of beginning.
Touching age
I am finding my youth.
Unable to spell
I am learning my letters.
I accept my ageless heart.
I am what I must be.
But, oh the losses!
I never grieved the passing
of a day.
The change of a season.
It was love that put its thorns
in me.
Love that showered me
with good-byes.
That left gifts on the step
never to tell me who left them.
So I return,
and can’t return.
I go to a school
where the children have died.
Hear the echoes of their voices,
and sit down
at the only desk that’s filled,
my own.
And say hello to the shadows.
Raise my hand
to recite to the emptiness,
and lay my head on the wood
hearing footsteps in the grain,
while immortality weeps
on its surface.