We all bury people.
We all get buried ourselves.
Not in the gold fall of autumn,
or the drenching monsoon of rain.
But in the intangible loss
of a bare table.
The missing space in an album.
The tune
that refuses to sing in our memory.
And that’s when I go out
and put seeds in my garden.
Dig holes in the earth,
not for coffins,
but for roots.
That’s when I invite strangers in
to hear my words,
not about the missing,
but the town I’m going to next year.
To see the sights,
the boats come in,
and privately,
to find my lost loved one.
To put something back in my heart.
So coming back,
I find what was missing
from the table,
how the seeds came up,
how deep the roots ran
into the earth,
and the sigh of someone’s breath
on my face when I retire,
that lets me welcome dreams again.