February 2, 2012 - Remembering Tony

Not a day goes by that I don't think about Tony--mostly not with sadness.  There is a lot of glee and delight and memories that make me laugh out loud when they pop by for a visit.  This particular time of year, however, they are a little sad.  I miss her.  This was a poem and a piece I did as a memorium.

They buried my friend

     on a day of unsettled weather.

A day with sky like grand opera--

     flotillas of thunderheads,

     divas with their great round bustles and breastworks

stinging white against periwinkle,

     their brooding purple crinolines

trailing long shadows on the fields.

They buried my dear friend

on a day thrashing to be spring.

A day of distant squalls muting blue mountains

and dancing eucalyptus.

A day when the bare trees in the orchard

were wet and black

as chinese brushwork.

A day with just enough sun

that the finches dared to leave their wire

and flit in the wild mustard

until their wee wet backs 

were glittered yellow.

They buried my true friend

on a day of sudden showers

And when a burst of hard rain

broke as abruptly as it began

and the gray of it parted

like a silk drape--

A perfect cliche of a rainbow 

arced the greening hills before me--

each color of it vivid and precise

the ends dissolving golden 

into the stripes of new turned earth.

And this strange and perfect sign

just sat there singing

the ancient anthem of its kind--

And it stayed until I could be finished looking.