One More Piece of Holy Ground.

Two weeks until summer,

the air already so hot and still

I haven't breathed since late February. 

Even then, the snow was blowing up from hell.

I could put the fan on,

open a cold one,

but it won’t help.

I'll still have to figure it all out,

figure out my next breath.

I was raised that a man don’t run.

And that’s how I’ve lived my life.

Now I sit here, surrounded 
by a group of somebody's peers,
 and wonder who the hell thought that one up:

The man with the car?

The man with the gun?
The man who lies in your face?

All my losses and all my grief

and all the regrets of my life,
too many to name
but nothing compared to that day,
they're easy to sum up:

I wish I had taught my son to run. Run fast.
And let me stand in his place. 

***
what astonishes me: that parents, every day, are living through this; that they can live through this

Look Back With Longing Eyes.

There will come a day

when you won't remember each other's names.

I think she was in my home room.

He played football. I think.

Don't worry about this. 

You will remember

the softness of that late afternoon sun
a moment of promise between dusk and twilight

the look in your mothers' eyes as they took pictures
 of the beauty and the heat and the lies of memory

the smell of the flowers,

and his hand, gentle on your wrist.

the smell of the flowers,

nothing sweet as the smell of her skin. 

You will remember.

Summer, waiting.

That first dance. And the last.

What you think you will never forget.

Beauty will surprise you, always.

***
what astonishes me again and again and again: 
youth, unjaded