Of Those Who Went on Ahead

Today the sun shines brilliantly and there are clouds
These clouds are billowy so pillowy they cover most of the sky
And still there are light fragments thrown off the pond surface onto the knotty ceiling
Threads of dancing shimmering ephemera

Like the memories of those who went on ahead

Pearls on the strings of memory
Spacer beads between are the high times
Those solar eclipses where poetry of truth of being
Emerges out of the darkness falling into midday

Most days are smooth like silk
Falling all over each other
Drops upon drops in the waterfall
Splashing onto stream bed, throwing off prisms of all the colors

Then comes that day where someone has left us all
Their lives elevated suddenly like statues in our plazas
Our ever-changing array of Lovers and Friends, Sisters and Daughters
Brothers and Mothers and Uncles all of them, coming and going

How I miss them all, those who are absent
Taking joy as warm as pan fresh toast from those who will return
The heart heaviness from those who will never ever be but spiritually present
Sometimes smothering every breath and ounce of joy

Then comes my daughter's voice
She who had been lost more lost than every yesterday
She who returned
Reminds me that in her baby's unbidden smile, focused upon nothing we discern

In that smile
There is the connection with those who went on ahead
Penetrating the thinner veil separating those who have recently arrived
Touching their beings, the last loving caresses of the unforgotten
We know we are within that self same circle of being and not being
Coming and going like every beam of sunlight on any day replete with fluffy clouds