Dedication

Dedication

“I am surrounded by the radiance,
glory and richness of the Creator”
Sankara 1946-1985

A child points at the foot
of a wife of thirty years.
The wife is speaking to a friend
who was six years old back
when she married her husband.

The friend was fifteen, the eldest
of five, when his mother died
without her husband or a funeral.
It has taken him twenty years
to organize her memorial service.

Under a newly wrought trellis
a granite bench, engraved
with her own words,
sits on fresh concrete.

Strewn marigold petals,
vases of gardenias and sunflowers,
and a rose garlanded frame
surround a photograph of a smile,
Sankara’s smile, from decades ago.

“A butterfly landed on your toe”
says her seven year old granddaughter
as she points at her father’s friend.

The husband of thirty years,
glancing in his wife’s direction,
sees bluish-gray inch high
wings on her foot.

The dull wings casually unfold,
revealing brilliantly iridescent
blue upper sides; the kind of blue
that can’t be captured in a photo.

Conversation dies off as all watch
an Eastern Tailed Blue’s low fluttering flight
to the white clover and yellow bird’s foot trefoil
that will sustain its offspring
after the crowd
fades away.