Crossing to another shore

For Kim. 

When a Friend Dies

When a friend dies

the salmon run no fatter.

The wheat harvest will feed no more bellies.

Nothing is won by endurance

but endurance.

A hunger sucks at the mind

for gone color after the last bronze 

chrysanthemum is withered by frost.

A hunger drains the day,

a homely sore gap

after a tooth is pulled,

a red giant gone nova,

an empty place in the sky

sliding down the arch

after Orion in night as wide

as a sleepless staring eye.

When pain and fatigue wrestle

fatigue wins.  The eye shuts.

Then the pain rises again at dawn.

At first you can stare at it.

Then it blinds you.

--Marge Piercy, from The Moon is Always Female

You Know Who You Are: This is for You, My Friend

You went west to where the mountains stop,

and did not stop, but built a home

a whole new life that was not new

to you but real as Kansas loam.

Always in you mind was that far 

place whence you came and that far place

where you  were.  Distance you would bridge

--root trunk limb--all the ways

you could say Friend and mean it such

a way no stream could be denied.

The door stands open in that home,

the special chair for us reserved.

Friend, take this small token, if you

will, as tribute from all of us 

who have too long remained silent

about your heart and human trust.

--Jim Barnes, from The Sawdust War

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