Lifelines

I’ve just gotten word that a dear friend passed away in Santa Fe in June, in her late nineties, full always of energy and love.  All I can offer her and those who miss her is this handful of elegiac and hopeful phrases by W.S. Merwin, to hold like river-polished pebbles on the lifelines of the palm.

“Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.”

“What you remember saves you.”

“The story of each stone leads back to a mountain.”

“we travel far and fast
and as we pass through we forget
where we have been”

“Tell me what you see vanishing and I will tell you who you are”

“On the last day of the world
I would want to plant a tree”

image:  Sunset, Woodyardville, Arkansas, Luisa Palma, Collage Art