Crossing the Field
Remembering the beautiful soul of a friend and fellow poet
This heart bore the weight of a drifting cloud,
Echoing winds that gathered at your voice.
I watched your steady stance before the crowd—
The youth in me yearned for your compass-light.
Not like a father, not like flame, more like a pole star.
You sensed it too but kept your orbit clean,
As honor demands. Vows are like planted seeds
Kept in the garden soil of thought.
Years before our encounter,
A gifted wordsmith scribbled me into fog,
Through brittle leaves and frost-laced paths we stumbled.
But frost gave way to dew-soaked petals,
Then meadow runners cut through the grass
Beyond the chapel stones.
He cannot equal you—except in the call to art.
Both gave me canvas, color, possibilities.
And seeing now how all fields lead to dusk,
The harvest waits—calm as the grain that bends in wind.
Crossing this field, slow, purposeful,
Nothing roots the rhythm of the day—
Your essence and mine will scatter
Through the breath of the Divine,
But only the Divine knows
The shape of how and why—or if . . .
A slightly different version appears in my collection If My Words Could Rise.
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