though i hardly knew you i had seen your face, your smile, the way your eyes sparkled when a child laughed, i knew what lay behind them, i thought...there was a hardness there, born of a thousand sunsets alone, a resolution to endure until God gave you rest, a place immutable but sharp as a knife where you looked out at the scenery and waited...you were not afraid until i told you your past, from your eyes, and you were not afraid after i told you your future, and you were unafraid as you told me your present, from your eyes, promising violence i could never hope to answer if i betrayed your unspoken rules, and i did as i was bid, and so you rode away, never looking back...i thought i had known you...i know nothing

the leaving fills your heart more full than you imagined it could, a leaving filling crying artificial loss that separates heart and mind from flesh from flesh and there is no more comfort in the hand that's held close, so you cry and you cannot speak and still you know the life lives on in the sky and then over the sea and later you load the washer and a sock reminds you of the time you swam with the one you love and there was laughter and splashing and Jesus loved you both and you could feel it and so you go into your room and both your children comfort you between the sobs and the antics of the smaller one remind you again when you were seven and she looked like that when she stumbled also and you laugh and you thank God who watches over and you hold her close to your soul in prayer