Ashes

The supper dishes are washed

and the table wiped down,

The sun is setting yonder 

past the thickening

green growth,

young buds on old trees.

With Malbec in my glass tonight,

and one small candle lit,

I reflect.

Earlier, as I set foil packages out on my friend's stove,

while greeting his family...

a daughter, a son,

two dogs,

all grown...

he tells me today was the day 

he picked up her ashes.

The ashes of the wife he lost

Easter morn.

I notice the lines on his face are etched 

deeper today,

but he says he is hungry,

and I think,

'this is good',

'he needs to eat'.

We talk about her--

the one conspicuously missing from the room.

She was here last Saturday night.

She was healthy and vibrant,

alive....

the epitome of 'alive'.

No one saw it coming,

least of all her,

as she walked out to the park

that Resurrection Day.

He told me how he wrote her obituary,

how he read it to her sister,

and she thought maybe he went on

a bit too much.

He smiles and I smile back,

because even though I haven't read it yet,

we both know

he wrote it perfectly.

Now, just down the street,

sitting in my own quiet,

I am thinking about her,

how she  loved the sound of the screeching hawk

and yipping coyotes,

good food, family, friends,

how she gave everything she had to those she loved best,

and how when someone loves like that

the hole they leave seems to 

grow into a chasm,

-- one that can't be bridged.

And how with that,

he is sitting over there

with ashes.

How can something so big,

be reduced to such little

dust?

Thinking about this is the beginning 

of grief.

~Maria