Every day the distance grows shorter between then and later,

An impossibly narrowing bridge of what we chose and what we dare not forget.

There,

Now nearer than ever before,

The hands of fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers--

lovers and strangers that we touched more than we could have known,

Wave to us, and beckon, not for speedy arrival at their shore

But to remind us that all bridges bear the first wood slat toward the last wooden rail,

And what we do, with each moment,

Matters.

We matter.

They mattered.

They matter, still.

 

Kindness is bitter for those whom have not lost too much.

But for those who know the hollow, dead place of loss, where moss grows across what we regret and

With cranky bones that no longer do as we bid,

with eyes squinted to make sense of what we see as blur,

With hair gone grey with life lived,

With lines crossing our faces (maps of who we have been and now are)

we become closer to the ones who will wave from the other side of the bridge,

who remind us that we can choose to listen and do no harm--

Love,

Forgive….
Because there is shorter time to say what needs the saying

With each day.

They tell us that, by the simple act of going.


Harshness of word in life was beat from me

And replaced itself with a gentler heart.

But no, there are no banners for those of us who carry the weight of

All we cannot undo or redo or remix to self-satisfying tone…

The tender heart – learned—on a forced march--

Battered into submission by the simple and learned

Art of life.


Mallets across ribs, drummed exclamations, calloused hands on face,

 Deeds done in toothless-smiling sentences of Self.

(Dreaded Self)

Self, that corners us in the dark of our bedrooms and whispers lies or truths,

But none grow easier to hear as the

Hands wave to us from the last bridge rail.


I am a common creature, filled with the same atoms and cells of stupidity

That fight against the simpler construction of Hope and Love.


But I cannot ignore the wave of the hands

That remind me how finite it is... and how quickly the moss grows.


For Doctor Richard Schack, my friend, gone too soon