I thought of you, today, as I started
my normal routine of making coffee,
feeding cats and waking kids. I wondered
if you had been able to sleep
in what we both hope is your sanctuary,
your place to understand and heal twisting
emotional convolutions, your uniqueness
as a thinking, feeling human -- as my friend.

I got my kids ready for school, observed
the sun shifting with a changed dawn’s
precipitous light. I wondered
if you felt scared, or relieved, or, maybe,
even crazier. I remembered how we shared
life’s painful thoughts, its crowns of cacti,
the insecurities of advancing our children’s lives,
and our own, as well.

I missed your morning visit, before
you would go to work, when you would drink
my two-hour old coffee. I wondered
if you thought of me thinking of you,
and I knew you did, and I knew you would cry,
wanting to be sitting on my picnic table,
telling the latest of your unending calamities,
me, glad my life wasn’t so chaotic.

I wanted to calm you, give you back
the person you were losing, like I can,
like I could, anyway. I wondered
if you feared you wouldn’t come back
from sanctuary any different, really,
in the depths of your soul, where shattered
essence couldn’t stop fracturing, like glass,
while mind created new days’ façade.

I sighed as I felt Winter’s windy fingers
plucking at my saddened spirit with
brittle, grasping nails. I wondered
what you were going through, if you
could see some hope to realigning stability,
in overcoming your compassless anxieties,
if, when you come home, you will still know
the me that is you, waiting on the picnic table…

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 2/3/05