When we talked about your seasons
And how you barely finished spring
You probably would have liked that
You were all about the metaphors
When the guns went off and the bagpipe played
Snow fell gently
You likely would have smiled
You always enjoyed a little bit of a show
When we thew our sand with trembling fingers
You might have said, it’s just a bit of cold
You always did run hot, didn’t you?
Knowing you, you might have even been wearing shorts
When we talked of frozen toes and shaking boots
We remembered
yours were scattered ashes
so we stayed a little longer than we needed to
Long after your sword of happy spring was laid beside you
In the bellows of a church
In a bar without a sign
We drank to your life
Someone you barely knew wept in a kilt in the stairwell
You weren’t there but you would have been touched by the people you changed by just being you
I never did get to see your home
But I did see your city in a waiting room
Monday on Montreal Road
It was a day we were all manic about
Like the sand we threw in your Garden’s Circle
Time just slipped away
I hope you would say you knew
The impact your past and actions had on me
On many
On all of those you left behind
in the present you lived for
I think you’d figure out
But I’m not sure you would have liked it in a poem
Did you even like poetry?
I’m still reeling that I’ll never get to ask you that