perched on a sapling

 

i know my years gone by are too many too soon

my feels are that i have but scratched the surface

of a life not always well lived, although i have

painted my own canvas

 

i feel like a young bird that is perched on a sapling

singing my little heart to make rise my first morning

sun and not realizing the sapling i am perched upon l

will grow to be a grand old oak

 

in the morning the breath i take, although mine eyes

have not closed, transitioned from daytime reveries

to nighttime dreams, may be the first of the rising sun

but may also be my last

 

these words that i write today may be those of someone

else reading them long after my incarnate shell has

released its spirit, its soul from the tethers of this world,

from this transitory mortal stay

 

and whoever you are that is reading these words, please

sing them and never cease singing, for this sapling you’re

perched on will grow grand but you and she will depart

too soon, leaving your songs on this short sojourn

not ready to hear this

 

the love of my life, my partner, my wife said to

me the other day, almost whimsically, ‘ya know,

‘papa’, i’m ok if i die sometime in the near future

from this Leukemia. i have accepted my end, i’m

not afraid to die’. i walked away and into another

room in our abode, closed the door and tears flowed

and flowed because i can’t believe that she doesn’t

realize i may not feel the same, that I’m not ok if

she departs from my side sooner rather than later

 

i’m almost ten years her elder and of course i have

had similar thoughts, no fear, about my passing but

that’s because i’m older than her and these thoughts

considered, of our departure from this existence, is

that i wish for us two growing ‘old’ together, holding

each other as we traverse onto our transcending

journey, so to hear her utter these words to me really

hurt my heart and my spirit is disheartened with

this on my mind

 

i cannot bear the thought of losing her presence,

looking at her in front of me, staring deeply and

lovingly into those beautiful powder blues, hearing

her voice, holding her, kissing her every morning,

every day and always in the evening before resting 

our eyes to sleep, telling her ‘i love you more than

any human on this earth’. i think she knows this

because it is what i say to her every day, three times

every day.

 

the thought of losing someone that your whole being

is intertwined, enmeshed with, is what makes life so

much more painful than just the burdens of all the

other mundane struggles of life.

 

‘do not disdain portrayals of love or feign affection,

receive with open arms and heart life’s every emanation,

for loves will falter and tend to fade away and the heart

will be scorned and cry from day to day, do not fold within

like the flower that sleeps at the end of its season but, like

a perennial, leave a little room to start again’.

one more day stepping slowly

 

now into my latter years on this mundane sojourn

i walk slowly, step softly, look around more often,

breathe in deeply, touch the petals of flowers and

stop to observe the birds, squirrels, and chipmunks

 

i take walks with a quiet intent so that i can hear

the wind’s whispers, the tree leaves rustling, joyful

sounds of children playing, dogs barking, birds singing,

observe faces of people walking by

 

i come up to a maple tree that has witnessed all this but

from a different perspective of silently standing sturdy, it

stands on an embankment to a stream and so i sit quiet

at its base listening its water running o’er stones and

branches sharing with me its journey

 

i look upward to observe the clouds soaring by for they

 too have their stories and then luckily and by coincidence

while peering at the sky i witness a flock of birds dancing  

in the wind as then a hawk comes soaring while then the

birds take chase and so this vision sates my spirit