Moving into winter days
I marvel at the neighbor's maple
reaching high above our roof
the dark boughs hidden
tucked behind what was till now
a mass of solid green
and overnight has turned
to a pale green and yellow cloud
soon the unleaved limbs
will show themselves
gray tracery
against the paler sky

This is the month my mother died
it's been nine years
sometimes it seems
like yesterday and other times
it seems so long ago I can't
bring back the feelings
though the images of her are clear

My father's death
came only three weeks later
though in a different year
no wonder as the winter looms
I feel myself turn back
to embrace and mourn
even as I celebrate
my holy dead

Though family comes first
then lovers
friends and teachers
and some whose lives
merely brushed mine
but left something
that over years
still brings them back to mind

One on whom I meditate
not knowing
where to place her
is the child
we would have had
and loved
my first wife and I
had she not miscarried
she was working
I was struggling
to write my thesis
and the child
who'd brought us
to decide on marriage
left suddenly
unmourned
I mourn her now
and ponder what her life
might have been like
had she not turned back
still in the womb
and how my life
would have been changed
enriched and challenged

After this my wife chose
not to have another child
had this child lived
our marriage might have lasted
past its four year stretch
hard to imagine now
this fall would have seen
her fifty-fourth birthday
turned back so soon to stardust
as we all shall be
I grieve our loss
only now
belatedly