Tears of Memory

Tears of Memory My wish is to give peace, comfort, and hope to those on earth grieving the loss of a loved one.

There are two of them on the branch.That is the thing I cannot stop looking at.Two — the way there were two of usfor so ...
06/14/2026

There are two of them on the branch.

That is the thing I cannot stop looking at.
Two — the way there were two of us

for so long that I stopped counting,

stopped noticing the specific weight

of being two instead of one.
The branch they share is bare,

no leaves, no shelter from the open sky —

just that thin grey line of wood

holding both of them above the valley.
I keep my hands in my coat pockets now

when I go outside in the cold.

Both hands. Both pockets.

The way I did when you were beside me.
I am choosing to look at two birds

on a branch and let that be enough —

not a sign, not a message,

just two living things sharing one place.
The valley below them is white with mist,

the kind of cold that presses

against your chest from the outside,

that you lean into to feel it.
One bird turns its beak toward the other.

The other does not move.

I watch from where I am.

My coat smells like the closet you kept it in.
— Tears of Memory

I found your scarf in the cedar chest.I pressed my face into it before I knew I was going to.The wool still holds someth...
06/14/2026

I found your scarf in the cedar chest.

I pressed my face into it before I knew I was going to.
The wool still holds something —

not exactly your smell,

but the shape of where your smell was,

like an outline in cold air.
I have been sitting with it in my lap

the way you used to sit with things —

carefully, both hands,

like everything was worth holding.
The leaves outside have turned

the color of the scarf's fringe —

amber and rust and that particular brown

that has no other name.
I am not putting it away.

That is the decision I have made

without deciding — to let it stay

folded across my knees.
The knit is loose in places,

pulled by years of being worn

through cold mornings neither of us

thought to name as ordinary.
I keep touching the loose threads

at the edge, the ones that unraveled

and were left that way.

You always meant to fix them.
— Tears of Memory

The dock still has your footprintsin the soft wood at the far end.I have not walked past them.I stop where they stopand ...
06/14/2026

The dock still has your footprints

in the soft wood at the far end.
I have not walked past them.

I stop where they stop

and stand with the fog

and the smell of cold water rising.
The leaves came down again this year —

brown and rust and pale gold

scattered across the planks

the way they always were when you walked here.
I used to follow you to the edge.

You would stand with your hands in your pockets

and look at the water like it owed you something.

Now I stand with my hands in my pockets too.
I did not plan to do that.

I noticed it one morning and had to sit down

on the dock's edge, my feet

just above the waterline.
The fog does not burn off

the way it used to by nine o'clock.

Or maybe it does

and I am just not watching.
The leaves under my shoes are soft,

half-rotted, soundless now.

I keep walking to where your footprints are.

And stopping. And not going further.
— Tears of Memory

The red bird landed on the railingwhere you used to rest your arms.I did not move.I did not breathe.I just watched it si...
06/14/2026

The red bird landed on the railing

where you used to rest your arms.I did not move.

I did not breathe.

I just watched it sit there,

the only color left in the world.The wood of this railing

is cold now under my forearms —

the same grain, the same splinters,

the same view of nothing in particular.You stood here once and said

the moon looked closer than usual.

I did not look up then.

I look up now, every night.I have decided not to go inside.

Not yet. Not while the bird

is still here, its red chest

pressed against all this grey.It keeps turning its small head

toward me, then away,

then back — as if asking

something I almost understand.I stay because staying

feels like the only honest thing.

The bird stays too.

I don't know what that means.— Tears of Memory

The rose is standing in the rainand not one petal has come loose yet.I notice things like that now —what holds under the...
06/14/2026

The rose is standing in the rain

and not one petal has come loose yet.
I notice things like that now —

what holds under the weight of what falls,

what stays closed when everything around it

is running dark and cold down every surface.
I have his letters. Not emails —

actual letters, fountain pen on cream paper,

the ink that ran slightly in the humidity

of the summers he wrote through.
Some words are softer than others.

The rain got them.
I keep the letters in the box with the blue lid —

the one he gave me for a birthday

because he said: some things need a lid,

you'll understand when you need a lid.
I understood when I needed a lid.

The rose in this image stands in the rain

with every petal holding its exact red

while the rain tries to find a way through.
Tries and tries.
The box with the blue lid is on the shelf.

The letters inside are soft in places.

The rose has not lost a petal yet.

I do not know how much rain it can hold.
— Tears of Memory

I held his hand through the last night.I did not know how to stop.The nurses came and went.The light changed in the wind...
06/13/2026

I held his hand through the last night.

I did not know how to stop.
The nurses came and went.

The light changed in the window

from dark to the particular grey

that means morning has decided to happen.
His hand was still warm for longer than I expected.

I have not known what to do with that fact.
It is the fact I carry most carefully —

the warmth, and how long it lasted,

and how I held on past the point

where holding made a difference to anything but me.
The two hands in this image

reach toward each other through cloud —

not touching, not quite —

the gap between them is the whole subject.
That gap.
I know the weight of his hand.

The particular way the knuckles felt

under my thumb when I held it.

I have not found another hand with that weight.
His weight.

The warmth that lasted.

The grey light that came whether or not

I was ready for a new day to begin.
— Tears of Memory

The red petals are on the floor and she is not.That is the image I keep returning to.The shape of her is still in the ro...
06/13/2026

The red petals are on the floor and she is not.

That is the image I keep returning to.
The shape of her is still in the room —

just slightly to the left of where the light comes in,

the way she always stood,

slightly to the left of wherever the warmth was.
I have her cardigan. Pale blue,

the kind with buttons she never buttoned —

she wore it open always, the two sides

falling apart the way relaxed things fall.
The cardigan hangs on the back of the bathroom door.

I walk past it six times a day.
On good days I just walk past.

On harder days I stop and put my hand

flat against the wool —

not moving, just pressing, just: here.
The shadow of her in this image

stands in the mist without insisting —

just present the way mothers are present

even when you stop expecting them to be.
Stop expecting.
The petals are still on the floor of this image.

She has not stepped through them.

The cardigan is still on the door.

I walked past it this morning and stopped.
— Tears of Memory

She raises her hand toward the cardinalthe way you reach for something already past catching.Not desperate — something q...
06/13/2026

She raises her hand toward the cardinal

the way you reach for something already past catching.
Not desperate — something quieter than that.

The way the body lifts toward what it loves

without asking permission,

without expecting arrival.
I have her bracelet. Silver chain,

one small charm — a bird, not a cardinal,

just a bird, wings slightly open,

mid-motion, not landed, not gone.
She chose it herself. Thirty years ago.

Still on my wrist.
I have worn it so long

the chain has molded to a particular looseness —

the exact slack of thirty years of a wrist

that is not her wrist, carrying her bird.
The woman in this image stands in wildflowers

under a moon that is too large to be ordinary

and reaches up the way grief reaches —

open-handed, not grasping.
Open-handed.
The cardinal is past the moon's edge now.

The arm is still raised.

The bracelet is on my wrist.

The bird charm is mid-motion, as it has always been.
— Tears of Memory

I went to work the Tuesday after.People looked at me like I had done something remarkable.I had not done anything remark...
06/13/2026

I went to work the Tuesday after.

People looked at me like I had done something remarkable.
I had not done anything remarkable.

I had simply run out of reasons

to stay in the house

and the alternative was this.
I have his toolbox. Red metal,

the latch that sticks on the right side

unless you press the corner first —

a particular fix only the two of us knew.
I use the tools.

The latch still sticks.
I still press the corner first before I lift —

the body carrying his solution forward

past the point where he is here

to be thanked for having found it.
The stone heart in this image is cracked

and hanging from a rope

and still entirely, unmistakably a heart —

the crack does not change the shape.
The shape holds.
I press the corner. The latch opens.

I use the tools.

I go to work on Tuesdays.

The crack does not change the shape.
— Tears of Memory

His face is almost there in the blue.That is the only way I can describe it.Not a photograph, not a memory with edges —j...
06/13/2026

His face is almost there in the blue.

That is the only way I can describe it.
Not a photograph, not a memory with edges —

just the particular blue-grey

that arrives in the corner of the room

on certain mornings and stays for a while.
I have his reading chair. Wing-backed,

the armrests worn to the natural color of things

that have been touched for thirty years

by the same returning hands.
The worn patches are hand-shaped.

Exactly. Still.
Some mornings I sit in it before I am ready —

before the day starts making its demands —

and I put my hands where his hands were

and I just sit in the fact of him.
The face in this image is made of weather,

of light diffusing through blue,

of whatever the sky does

when it is not trying to be anything.
Not trying.
He is in the chair and in the blue and in the room.

I cannot prove that.

I also cannot sit in that chair

without knowing it.
— Tears of Memory

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New York, NY

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