You wrote a poem
Forty years ago or more
When you were in the middle
Of your journey
You saw an apple tree
That struggled
Toward the sun
And you captured it’s life
Beautifully
In written word
And we turned it to calligraphy
And gave it back to you
Within a frame
And placed it
There among your
Memories
And dusted round it
Carefully
But like anything that slips
Into familiar
We got so used to seeing it
And never really stopped
To read it anymore
It held it’s place within
The clutter of the
Everyday
Until you came
To lie beside it
In your final moments
When suddenly
It spoke to me
I picked it up
And read each line
And with a sense of awe
And premonition
Never realizing when you
Wrote these words so long ago
You were telling us the story
Of your will
Your reluctance to let go
Of life and all it’s beauty
You said you were not ready yet
There were things still left to do
And you clung to life
Beside the ancient tree
Within the frame
But when you left us finally
I had a reassuring feeling you were free
To follow and pursue
The dreams you left unfinished here
And your poem gained freedom too
We took it out from it’s four walls
And sent it’s spirit
And it’s words of joy
And hope
And life enduring
To all who loved and knew
The better part of you
And in a twist of fate
Or maybe this was orchestrated
Long ago
The apple wood
From your old friend
Who’d passed away just recently
Was there to keep you warm
Burning brightly in the stove
And holding out it’s light
To take you home



Sara Mathews     February 2016