Side note to friends ~ Prayer for the best outcome for me and Luke from appt on Tue morning much appreciated. Still trying to rise from a decade-old tattered page. Your support means a great deal. Dawn


Here you stare out at me and, where once stood a sage
imparting grace and opportunity, rises poison from the page.
And I wish again I had never been
because I loved you and do
because you hurt me and do
and never care what
it is you have done
in not doing.

You wrote there that you wished God’s very best for me
the day you shut me out, nailed withered hope to a tree.
But you didn’t leave it at that. You learned
to play the deaf-mute to my repeated please
tell me why, please forgive me, friend,
as we sail other seas.
You refused flatly
to acknowledge me
or agree on anything.

Here in the familiar and beautiful rush of September wind,
memories collapse, and tired leaves cling to branches that bend.
In the photograph, you stand at a turn in the road
winding upward to the mountaintop view
of heaven on earth. You are thinking,
even then, perhaps, it is
too late. But, friend, it is
early, and we have
not fallen yet.

Rises there from tattered page the jolt of memory.
Today awaits and, with it, some small morsel of opportunity.
I will let it be enough that God has led me here, and
I will not betray my soul in mourning nor the way
it treasures you. Where you left me
hanging, I will find again
my footing. I will climb
high, and I will meet you
on your way.