this singing light

Storm clouds move in with the sunset. Wind picks up. The air is cool now. It is the end of two days not on any calendar. More than three weeks have passed and today, those who loved him, said goodbye to nephew John. I could not physically be there, in Connecticut, this weekend. Thanks to technology I participated in a sort of shadowy way. But I would have liked to hug my cousin Carl, my brother and sister in law, Anne (her sister) who was my idol when I was 17 years old (she was a beautiful young nurse and looked like Nellie Forbush in South Pacific. I wanted to be her! She was independent and confident). I haven't seen her in decades. My daughter talked to her for me and Anne told her that when I married her father in 1961 I wore her wedding gown. I'd forgotten that. That gown and veil, lost wedding, lost marriage. The bouquet. Who caught it?

mangia!
After the services today everyone met at a local Italian restaurant and did what our families have always done after a funeral - feast and tell stories over a long memorable lunch. Addresses were exchanged and promises made to keep in touch. Some folks were mindful, perhaps for the first time, of Time, how it passes, how lives whoosh through years on separate trajectories - good intentions sometimes coming a tad too late. We've all been affected in some way and I hope we won't forget the gift that has been given.

Darkness descends now, but for a few brief moments vivid yellow light suffused the land beneath the clouds like poems reaching up to be heard.

Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.  (Rumi)