Joyce Ritchie

This longest day marks the turn of a year.

No rituals guided our passage through this mourning,

save those we made up along the way.

There were good times and aching moments.

We had no rituals to guide us through our mourning.

We’d grown accustomed to Sunday afternoon phone calls.

There were good times and aching moments;

sometimes they were one and the same.

We grew accustomed to silent Sunday afternoons.

We made up new routines from old ones:

familiar but never the same,                   

an echo carried deep in our bones.                         

We made up new routines from old ones.

I baked her recipes; you wore his straw hat, planted tomatoes in the garden:

a living history carried in our bones.                                   

It’s a journey we took alone, together.

I baked, and you mulched the tomatoes with hay.

At Christmas we strung lights on the first tree we hadn’t cut from a snowy field.

This journey we took alone, together.

We went to work; we held each other by the fire; the nights grew longer.

At Christmas we got drunk, strung lights on a potted evergreen on the deck.

Some traditions we let go to memories.

We worked; we held each other by the fire; the days grew longer.

In spring we planted the evergreen on the rise by the garden.

Some traditions we kept; some we let go to memories.

Death’s finality is always the big surprise.

The evergreen grows strong on the rise overlooking the garden.

Lucky them, after 95 springs, to be surprised on the cusp of shortening days.

Death’s finality is always the big surprise.

A farmer plants in mind of promise.

Will we be lucky, see 95 springs, be taken by surprise?

Where nothing’s promised, we are free to dream.