Sunlight, oozing through dappled leaves, like warmed butterscotch. Some have begun to turn, golden, reds, and browns. Some already lay, like crumpled lunch bags on the ground, crunching underfoot as I make my way to the river bank. I know the exact spot, by heart. I listen to the laughter of water cascading over the dam. It isn't a waterfall, but the closest thing I could find, as my knees sink into soft dirt. Are those the same prints of three years ago, when here I first knelt? I know they aren't but still - The earth cradles me the same as when she bore witness, when your ashes danced upon the water. Grey swirls on aquamarine. The scene replays on the backdrop of my eyelids. I feel a soft breeze kiss the trail left by a lone tear. I blink open my eyes, stare at the azure sky. Lone hawk in flight. Lazily looping by. He too had been here. That day, when I whispered good-bye. The day, I wanted to follow you. To ease myself into the river's depths. When, I wanted so much to end the blackened rain that engulfed my spirit. It was the hawk that had stopped me, flying free, as I knew you had longed to soar. So, I knelt on the shore, and watched your ashes dancing, as he circled above. Today, as the sun wrapped itself about me, like a quilt of eider down, and the Earth cradled me, I learned, that you were never lost to me, you were merely waiting for me to be found.
