to leave your jacket
in pebbles
along the dry road

to hang your hat
on the dead
willow branch

and then walk
walk
walk
until...

is not forgetting

i still see
the pure color of
your left ear
in birch bark
between the brown trees
a ghost of dark woods

and the chipped
black lacquer
on your narrow fingernails
show among the warm
volcanic rocks

i still feel
the pink, gentle hills
around your mouth
like old, red kites
swollen
in pale sky

so i remember your beauty
for so many years
a maze of possibility
that puzzled my eyes

and your saintly kindness
that spared animals
and all the quiet folk
this you shyly denied

and i remember your happiness
folded in golden laugher
and loving comfort
but that
i failed to provide

this life

with its morning wakings

and thirty thousand sun paths

smells like nothing

without the one

why strive for yellow dust

or blast holes into mountain sides

or sacrifice to understand

without the one

athena your gifts are gone to waste

yours too hera and artemis and others

the grapes rot on the ground 

because i neglected your shrine

, you sea foamed swan,

i did not bleed your dove

or worship properly, love