This Place

 

This Place 

For K.

They tell me you are ready to leave this place. This place will miss you, my friend.

I want to believe you will return . . . as a Sitka bumble bee in a Nootka rose, as a chatty kingfisher, as water caressing the stones on the beach.

I want you to see this beautiful place with its bunnies quietly mowing the lawn in the yard and chomping down the bush daisies. The young ones zooming along the edge of the snowberry shrubs, fleeing to the shade when the eagle witters overhead.

I want so much for you.

I want your soul to elevate with the song of the Swainson’s thrushes calling to each other from the forest canopy.

I want you to be thrilled by the brilliant feathers of the western tanager feasting on ripe Saskatoon berries. I want you to taste the wine bright flavors of ripe red huckleberry, salmonberry, thimbleberry, wild strawberry and blackberry. 

I want you to revel in the dappled light of ocean spray blossoms in the soft morning light.

I want you to be surprised by the visitors on the silver wood of the railing of the deck: white crowned sparrow, robin, Anna’s hummingbird, western swallowtail and robber fly.

I want you to taste the fresh salad greens mixed with calendula petals, goat cheese and pickled beets. The mushroom quiche I made with Swiss chard and garlic scapes from the farmer’s market.

I want to embrace you and say “You have beautiful eyes and your laugh makes my heart sing”.

I want you to savor the scent of seaweed on the beach, honeysuckle, lavender, and Douglas fir.

I want to hold your hand and say, “Do you remember when you were a child and life was fresh and new”? I want you to remember life as it was, before all this heartbreak, pain and fatigue. Innocence on the prairie. Wild cucumbers and prickly roses at the side of the gravel road. The meadowlarks singing on fence posts. The dippered sky at night in winter when you lay on your sled in snow, looking up at the North Star.

Let’s watch the sun rise one more time. Please?

The kingfisher releases you. The ocean gives you back to the earth. The rocks underneath your bare feet bless you and whisper good bye. The loon cries with longing for you and falls silent.

Good bye my friend.

I miss you before you are even gone.

I miss you.

I miss you.