March 5, 2017, Prescott-

The wind has blustered, all day.

It blusters, still.

The water level in the reservoirs is high.

Cottonwood Peninsula is inaccessible.

Far away, across the Pacific,

a young man celebrates turning thirteen.

North of where he revels in his adolescence,

another young man, nearly sixteen years his senior,

thinks of his departed mother.

Gone six years now,

she lives on in memories,

and watches us all,

from the Placeless beyond.

I am asked,

‘Have you moved on?’

I am asked,

‘Are you not lonely?’

Behind those queries

is always the thinly veiled,

‘How about ______?’

‘What’s wrong with _______?’

The truth be told, though,

I am secure.

Other times, I may think,

‘ I have this blotch on my cheek’.

‘I’m missing a few teeth’.

I may say, under my breath,

‘I have no means to support another person’.

The truth be told, though,

I am secure.

She, the immortal spirit,

would let me know,

if my life should change.

She would let me know,

if someone waits in the wings;

just as she let me know

that she was waiting,

so many years ago.

 

Photos are of an at-capacity Willow Lake.