Why Are You Standing There, Looking at the Sky (Acts 1:11)

Someone says “Good-bye”
and disappears behind
doors or fades into
the distance in
a train or a car.
We might be standing at
the grave side of
someone we loved.
We keep looking, when
they have long vanished
from our sight as if to
hold on to their presence
just a bit longer – a futile effort.

Those who have left us
will be present to us
in other ways, in our hearts
and thoughts and memory.

Anyone truly precious to us
will have planted a seed
that will grow in us,
bloom and bear fruit,
nourished with loving care.

With deepest thanks to Edda Hackl, generous friend and gracious embodiment of Grateful Living. (1926 – 2019)