Cleaning my desk,

I opened an envelope stuffed

with keepsakes, cards, letters.

Crinkled against time, some tattered

with wear, I saw an old familiar address.

Pulling it from the pile was like pulling

a friend from the reservoirs of memories.

I opened it, the dust had settled on his words

as ashes and sand settled on his grave.

He had written to tell me that he was diagnosed

with cancer …

He reflected in ink, spilling his frozen moments

of time on the paper, as he waits for the rest of his treatments.

Slipped in the envelope was a picture he had taken

of a seagull taking flight.

It was this, the lost letter, I had looked for

from the past.

©  CMM  2013

• cancer death flight friendship seagull