Friends For LIfe
I shared with her my plans and schemes,
she shared with me her hopes and dreams.
Together we grew and then apart,
but apart we never forgot the start.
The start of what would one day be
a friendship for life, as we look back to see.
Mistakes we made and mountains we climbed,
didn’t take away the precious times.
We had when we were young and foolish,
dressed in hippie and rock style goolish.
Play house tucked between two trees,
went from ‘make believe’ to club house fees.
Cokes spilt as it fizzed to the top,
not being able to find the mop.
Burning pots in our effort to cook,
parents stood and trembled and shook.
The skating rink, and many a miles
as we skated and danced with youthful smiles.
The teen club, with all its rocking songs,
giving us a sense that we belonged.
Belonged of a generation confused from war,
with racial strife the turmoil we bore.
Our days became families and then children to rear,
the days we lived, the battles we feared.
From growing up in uncertain times,
didn’t seem to change or deter our minds.
From returning to what was always to be
a friend close in time we’d see.
The treasures of childhood, the journey or strife
is always best accompanied by a friend for life.
copyright: CMM 2005
I Do
If I could walk among your shadows,
but I can’t.
If I could but know your footsteps in your trail,
instead I am lost.
I read your final letters to catch insights from you,
I am left with questions.
I look through your archways of cover words,
I no longer feel protected.
I barefoot my thoughts onto the cold marble of time,
and morose sensations are all I feel.
No one asks permission to enter our lives,
or permits death in order to leave.
It just all is, and you are certainly gone,
you said in time no one would remember,
I do.
Dedicated to a friend who lost his battle with cancer.
© CMM 2011
The Book
I picked up your book,
left behind as a gift.
I thought how nice.
Now you have left,
and I think so nice I have the book .
I have the letter you wrote with such eloquent words,
full of philosophy and reason.
Now you are gone and the reason seems mute,
and the philosophy unfulfilled.
Combing my fingers over the checkmarks,
bringing me to attention to the tributes
you made to me, and us, and our friendship.
I feel you presence pour inside of me
and I know.
There is no book, no letter of reason,
no quote of philosophical works
that replace your having died without reason.
© CMM 2013
Lost Letter
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
Eagle and Child Inkling 