haibun ~ Ritual

In memory of …
a grasshopper leaps
from stone to stone

Sometimes the dead speak to us: this morning Facebook unearthed a seven year old message from a friend who died two years ago. Now here I am, interrupting a run to snap ox-eye daisies from the hedgerow and lay them on a rabbit knocked to the side of the road, as fresh and neat as sleep.

Flowers for what is lost: the voice of a friend, the beat of a heart. For the shrinking perimeters of my father’s mind. The last time I said goodbye he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it.  

Presence 63, March 2019