Heading Home On the launch of the James Webb telescope on December 25, 2021. They sent a telescope today to look for you. It will peer out from the dark side of the moon, from unrelenting cold, to find your heat - your bright being. And I think you will surprise them, the serious searchers, with your little chuckle, your sweet low murmur that will send across time your wave of delight.
Grief Has Been a Steadfast Partner Grief has been a steadfast partner these long days and nights as winter has moved in with its rain and chill, determined to take your place at the table. Since you died in autumn, the delicate golden leaves of the birch, under which we often rested with the dogs on the grass by the pond, have finally fallen, laying bare a lacework of pale branches, the majestic marble trunk revealed against a cold blue sky. In this mid-winter, I watch with an anxious tender gaze the careful pace of the black and yellow Monarch caterpillar as it finds its way to a safe place to slough its skin, to reveal its translucent pale green chrysalis. Such fragile beauty made to mark the end: one hungry hearty life transformed into a miracle of flight. Perhaps I will be ready to begin a new season without you, without your sure presence to hold me steady. In this season of grief, I yearn forward.
