another Spring

Walking out in the backyard
the flowers you planted years ago
are still blooming this spring
this space, which I dug and you planted
I have now inherited alone.
I never expected or planned for this
that I would have to leave you,
that what I thought was for a lifetime
was only a third of that;
seeing the bright buds beginning to open
i have to suddenly sit in the grass
tears flowing down my face
it feel like a loss, like what was
so heavily invested in by both of us
is just thrown out, dead
on the compost pile; and yet
no love is ever lost or wasted
I know this in my body now;
I now have love again,
and perhaps you will too;
but that is not my path
to wander or wonder about anymore;
for now, I simply walk the flagstones
we both set into the back of the garden
so that the alstromeria my mother lovingly tended
that came from her aunt’s yard in Lake Charles
and who knows from where before that
could be cut, brought in, placed in a small vase
which now sits on my shelf, ready, waiting
for the blooms to begin soon, while in my heart
love blooms again, what I thought impossible
now tripled and quadrupled
and in my body this flows upward from the ground
out all of the rest of me into you, and you
and you, all of you gathered in my heart.
I no longer have any illusion
that I can know how long these flowers will bloom
or how long my heart will remain open
but I do know that open, blooming, fading, dying
is all better than never having tried.