I understand now
why you were glowing
your smile a beacon
on the threshold of death.
A light held up
in the silence of words
you could no longer speak.
No cancer or lingering concern
could darken your soft expression.
All the lines had gone from your face.

All I could do
was to sit with you and marvel.
Hold your hand gently,
feeling the bones
beneath your velvet skin.
You looked like a queen
or a guru to me.
All your weakness transmuted
into wonder and love
those final days
surrounded by family.

Why wouldn’t you be happy?
Ecstatic
not for the unknown world waiting
but for the truth of now and here
stretching eternal
like a silken sheet in all directions,
time bowing back and away.
Nothing the world demanded of you now
but your quiet attention.

How I wondered then
what it was you looked upon
that broke you open like a cloud,
a powerful light
gleaming from your body.
It baffled me these ten years.
But now, Sister,
I’m pleased to tell you
how it greeted me this morning,
how I basked last night in the company of poets
and felt certain of myself for the first time.
Pleased to be here.
To remember what you taught me.