Still

Succor staid
Silence

Sudden song
Stained

Succulent sinew
Savaged

Sentient sorrow
Sings

Still

Shipwreck

I've been fooling myself.

I've liked to imagine my life with Judith as a ship under full sail and heavy wind. Driven forward and always on the edge of collapse. The wind died with her, and the doldrums set in.

I had a long talk with a new friend the other day. Long after she was gone, I still couldn't shake it. I began to realize how wrong I've been.

To stick with the ship analogy, most of the time I was bailing water. Water that I had let in myself. I was drowning us and saving us at the same time. The final storm swept me up, and spit me out. Shipwreck.

I spent some time, this weekend, looking hard at that wreckage. I've got some cleaning up to do. And then, what? And then, what? And then...

Jobs

You know, one of the hardest things to come to terms with is the fact that the world just keeps rolling on, after a tragedy. And it was a tragedy, on so many levels. Children lost their mother. Siblings lost their sister. I lost my greatest friend. The world lost a person with that rarest of qualities, grace. But on it goes.

That really bothered me in the early days. I wanted fire. I wanted wailing. I wanted apocalypse.

I wanted the world to recognize its loss - my loss.

But there is too much loss, and that's not the world's job. I took the picture above today, on a break. That's the world doing its job.

Look up. You'll see what I mean.

Why Don't

Why don't you
Just leave me be
Leap froggin my mind
And tearin around dreams
Like you owned the place

That ain't
No way to act
You that loved me
Beatin on me like that
Ain't no call for it

Get on away from here
Be about your business
Ain't you no how
Just me chewin
On old bones