Looking For You

for Boone and Ivy

There are all these roads here

I'm not supposed to go down. Too old,

too steep, logging roads, private roads,

rocks, ice, wind, fire. I have tried them all

looking for you, knowing full well you're not here.

I have tried the footpaths into the mountains.
I have walked next to the lake,
hung over the fence and searched in the water.

I have gone out on the ice,
right past the signs warning me not to,

and seen the big fish at the bottom, moving in slow motion,

looking for a deeper home in their frozen world.

I have learned a little bit about mountain life -

something about good boots, anti-freeze, black ice,

and the inevitable deaths of my tropical plants.

But I have not learned how to live without you.

I see little snips of color in the snowed-white trees,

and then suddenly - wheat field boy,

cranberry girl. I see your shapes

in rocks, your gestures in branches,

your souls in the way the animals live,

always moving toward life and nothing else.

Grief is supposed to teach us something.
I hear that all the time.
But everyday I learn only more mountain -

thermal socks, storm doors, better mittens.

I hike down to the water looking behind trees, up trails,

in the windows of little houses. I can't stop.

It doesn't matter what I know,

what everyone knows.

My feet are light and dry,

but my heart hangs

like a bass,

deep in the lake,

heavy and cold.