Ashes and Echoes

A version of this pom was published in November 2008 in the Anthology Fishing for Change.

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I brought her to the forest on the day
the snow melted. I brought her to the
clearing where we watched squirrels in November;
to the wood where she sang as we slept in
the grass; to the trees where the crows called to
greet us.

I brought her to the forest; to the
robin’s tumble-down garden; to the spot
where we once found the stars in melt-water ponds.

I took her ashes there, beside
the river, where she taught me to listen
as it laughed when the frost tickled the flood.
I scattered her where she lives in my heart,
but when I go back and listen for her voice
I hear nothing, nothing but the echoes of the woods.