February 17th, 2023
8th Iteration
Dedicated to my beloved husband, Floyd Russell Taylor
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Poem
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Comfy on the couch,
Tired from being overly, overtly happy,
A renegade thought escapes my Id:
“Despite the many days like this,
Life was better by his side. So much so.”
Mind you, no longing, no wanting.
This is merely a pebble with no emotional quotient.
Tossed into view, it skims the light from my mind.
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To my astonishment, I sense him treading.
Then, ripples, as if a swan was coming when called
To a hand filled with bread.
He stoops and smiles and nods approvingly.
“Yes it was. Yes. So much so.”
A fortunate soul who has shaken us off,
He only comes because I smile for once, rather than cry.
He partakes of my crumb. Fulfilled, he swans away.
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Telepathically, I echo my love. It ripples outwards.
But he is gone. Again. I bait a prayer:
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“I shall shut shutters to this grief, ignore its pinging.
How Incessantly it impinges its dirge upon my nerves.
I’ll forego the touch, the smell of wormy grief revived.
Finally, I vow to sit this anniversary eyes dry.
Better to wait on the shine from your spirit,
A sight so heady, I break out a smile I keep at the ready.”
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Who am I kidding? Not Russ. He is aloof, impervious.
My prayer, my smile breaks as fake.
I have become a tarot card, the hermit sharded by dark,
A bad omen for the future of others coupled.
Avoid me if you will, if you can.
I walk a desert sustained on the manna of remembrance.
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But, more than remembrance…Insight.
See how my pebble has seeded a poem.
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Coda
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Haiku I
My poems, Stars.
An endowment that pebbles
His death, this depth.
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Haiku II
Star poems pebble
Rivers, seas of riven-ness,
Their depths deep as death.
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Steven Golden
February 12th to February 14th, 2026
Completed 7:53 AM
Green Valley, Arizona
stevengoldenpoetry 