A windsong makes an invitation,
so the grasses may cry.
*
Landscape closer to Winter
yet green leaves push through soft Earth.
My father does not appear in these fresh shoots
or within the red bird that has been following me.
*
He’s not here.
*
Gracious man I called papa is in the lessons and emotions
held within the scenery of living.
*
He is the awe that my grief can be so almighty
and still the pinecone can ask to be named.
*
There was no expectation to find dad on the trail.
I hadn’t realized I was looking.
*
Within sight are tiny white flowers
Yellow, and purple blooms.
Unfurling ferns and scents that change
with more or less warmth from the sun.
*
It is 9,000 feet closer to the sky from the Earth
surrounded by Pine, Fir, and Aspen
that my lungs find the support they need to miss the one I am still learning is absent.
*
Full embodied missing is my spirit practice.
How to allow everything to be enough?
*
Simple request made more possible by listening
to daylight upon skin, and seeing one’s heart in all things.
*
This search is not because I am lost.
*
I look because it feels holy.