A Promise to Forget Everything

Wind rustles the blonde corn stalks; chickadees fly in and out of fallen sunflowers. There are grasshoppers still. Leaves sail through the cold air. In October, the light reveals a later stage of marriage than we anticipated. Sundays pass digging potatoes. Nobody wants to talk about last winter. Every time we look up, the sun has moved another three fingers west. It bears repeating: everything ends. I think of you often - you would have appreciated the corn stalks; you would have recognized the light. Potatoes want to be found, is what one finds digging them. Are we perfect because we allow ourselves to feel the pain of Her absence or because we are confused and She is not actually missing? Either way, we are not doing this alone. Hawks circle distant hills, moles scuttle deeper into grass. Can you hear the river a little farther north? Will you walk with me after midnight as far from the village as our legs will allow? Finally I remember how to pray. Why do I need you to remember me at all? Silky milkweed prisms float above the garden, the earth is a giant seed share. Imagine a promise to forget everything, up to and including the promise. This happiness, it becomes us.