April

For Mary Kay

Yesterday in the morning I left the house

to go be with my grandmother

as she died.

I asked how I was to do this

--watch somebody die--

and the answer was to take the tenderest care of myself

and all living things.

Why is it that every night I

resolve to love more fiercely

and every morning I awake the same stunted, failing clay?

It had rained the night before and the earth

smelled wantonly ripe and wet like

making life.

The soil spongy like a woman's fertile womb.

The earth doesn't mourn the dying in spring.

The cherry blossoms and lilacs don't apologize

for their lurid and honey-fragrant vigor.

They told me

that the only answer to death

is to become more wildly and unabashedly

alive.

**At the time of this posting my grandmother is being made comfortable, and is cared for, and has not yet finished the journey from this world to the next**