THE CHANGING RHYTHM OF LIFE

Only her face could fill the void,
but this is my life now,
the beginning of the beginning,
and I have to will myself
not to focus on how alone I am
but how lucky I am to be able
to smell the colors
of another day.

I am easily immersed in the perpetual
silent reminders of what was, but
like a spider webbing a path to the future,
I am sustained by what is
along with a mysterious instinct
for self-preservation.

Suddenly at daybreak
I am pulled into her orbit
by the sound of the wild parrots she so loved
flying overhead, synchronized but free,
screaming in the silence of the wind,
melting into the morning sun.

If, like me, they journeyed
in a rare northwesterly direction,
they would have penetrated the silence
of the immovable sky above Henderson Bay
in enchanting Gig Harbor.

To my amazement,
for a fleeting moment
at daylight
in a stillness of motion,
a bald eagle caressed the sky
above me
in search of breakfast
for her family
perched in a nest across the bay
high above Raft Island.

Such joy to not only witness the circle of life
but to be absorbed in it,
drifting away from my self
to another place in another time...

but as quickly as the changing tide,
joy can drift into sorrow
and the cries of desperation
I heard during the night
between sleep and dreams
were those of the mother
of the lifeless baby seal
that washed up on shore
to lie at my feet
in the stony quiet.

The rhythm of life keeps changing
and reshaping itself
and I am here
at the pleasure
of the momentary hands of time.

This I learned in the summer of her smile.

© JOHN PISCATELLA