Yesterday’s post and pic (Panama, 2003) were inspired by Rosemary’s Friday post and a casual remark she later made to me about ‘the girl’ she saw ‘with me’ on my live cam as I was leaving for work on Friday morning.  Well, there was no ‘girl’ out in the driveway with me, at least, none that the living would normally catch sight of.  But I think, perhaps, that Rosemary was attuned that day to ‘the other side’ and what she saw may well be ‘an accompaniment’ that I’ve felt with some intensity for the last five months, principally during my wintry jaunts in Lakeview Cemetery…

an accompaniment (audible)

When I run I know she runs with me
For then I’m in her land:
a garden of stones and memories
that most living see as a cemetery
yet for her seems like the sun and sand.

When I breathe she hears: the sound of the sea
The rush of that air is a rush
that sweeps her up into tandem bliss
with new promise of thrill for all she missed
now silenced by the Hush.

When I pound earth, she feels: ‘thump, thump’  ‘thump, thump’
As if my feet were the valves of my heart.
She thinks I’m running the ocean shore
And each step is a chance to live once more
Before the dark Depart.

But ‘the others’ know that I also run in ‘their land’
And I see things the living ignore:
the looseness of doom,
the lostness of gloom, and
a shiver of hope on a shadowy shore.