First of all, Greetings
To you and to all who contributed to your being
Your forbears and facilitators and purveyors
Aunts and grandparents and sisters and brothers
And friends and pets and treasured objects
Blankets and dolls and their houses and clothes
And all and sundry who brought you to where you could be
To make this place what it is.
And here’s to hoping that your suffering wasn’t too harsh
That your leaving at least from the point of having left
Now fits somehow into the fabric of being
And nonbeing; that pain and its struggle now means no more or less
Than the breeze that blows across the hill on which your house sits
I understand you suffered; I heard of your shock
You were called upon to let go before your time
But let me praise you now as deck-builder, junk-molder, forger
Of towering birdhouses, painter of lampshades and rocks, hanger
Of colors, user of all trifles and decorator of the everyday
Person of great patience and fortitude, enjoyer of vistas and storms
Lover of details, stringer of lights and colored cords, planter
Of perennials and bushes and flowers whose names I have never known
Forgive me having changed some things, passed some of your stuff
Onto the cycle of transformation, as I ease my way into your place.
Forgive me for loving what you have made
And in so loving making it mine
Forgive me for being among what was yours
Standing on the hillside as the cold mist gathers
On my face, and staring, a simple living human,
at the pines that rise up to the grey sky. Let now my gratitude
Rise up to you, and add some small portion to your peace
And serve some small reward
For all that you have given.