I. The First Year
Somewhere off our mountain
the rumors say old
battles continue But here the sun is warm
and distant wars
mean little to hummingbirds News can be slow to reach us
and harder still
to comprehend Yes, we know they are dying still
but the planes don't fly over
here anymore And although the thunder sometimes
can sound like a thousand marching feet
The storms mostly pass us by and do not stop to rain So we water the garden
and we are putting in
a new window box this year We have plenty of birdseed
and power outages
don't get noticed until dusk Strangers on the road
with dark and weary eyes
often stop to look up our hill We see them, but look away to watch the sunset
and when we look again
they are gone
II. The Second Year
We gather wild berries
that grow in the shaded
gully behind our house I find more, so
when you're not looking
I put some of mine into your pail We eat them together in the
silent morning air
a sweet breakfast gone too soon Warm sunlight streams through
the open windows of
our sleeping home We've long since stopped, you and I
flipping useless light switches
or listening for the hum of the refrigerator We've become accustomed to the silence
especially since that day
that the last of the batteries died That first year we talked incessantly
shared our lives and tears
on days far too long But we share mostly silence now
and when we talk
it is of counted canned goods The mushrooms we'll risk
where we saw the last rabbit
and how much water weighs The sky is always blue now
with never a white line
and rarely even a cloud I remember when you used to say
how useless you thought it was
to go on But now we just do
because to lie down and stop
just feels that much harder I try to feel to love
your sleeping form
and I seem to remember when I did But now there is only time
to keep the knives sharp
and hope they won't be needed in the night
III. The Last Year
To find you in
the forest
I only need to follow your laugh It's not the last thing
I thought I'd lose
your laugh But it is what remains
of our once
endless decade Your laugh
and a few more days
to count together Your laugh
and a shady tree
with a squirrel who watches As we sit down to wait
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