I spoke to
God again this
Time crying He
Whispered to me
Son the absence
Of love is
Pain and the
Absence of pain
Is love it’s
Impossible to know
One without the
Other that is
Why I made
It that way
To remind you
Cherish everything always
Yes even pain
For from it
Springs the other
This sky is
One large lounging
Gray tabby sitting
On the Appalachian
Mountains windowsill absorbing
All the sun
Preventing any of
It to warm
Any of us
Shoo cat shoo
Bring us that
Cold winter sunshine
Days are shorter
Like furloughs during
The war time
Winter trees stand
Naked outside my
Window charcoal fingers
Playing puppet shadows
Against cold gray
December skies that
Hover like parents
Over home work
Never really moving
Nary a breeze
All is still
But me seeing
And you breathing
Here beside me
I awoke from
Sleep breathless and
Startled as though
Those in my
Dreams were holding
Me under water
At once realizing
That they are
The ones gone
And not me
I am yet
Alive charged still
With this life
Which is worse
To be the
Living haunted or
Those gone haunting
And then like
A bomb dropped
From high over
Head it exploded
And decimated everything
That of course
Was 2020 what
It really did
Though is refocus
The world towards
Common humanity this
Idea that none
Of us are
Invincible without others
And each of
Us is just
As deliciously delicate
And temporary as
Those summer blossoms
HARLAN DIDRICKSON 