Photo courtesy of NASA
Just because they’ve died, it doesn’t mean they’re
gone. Who’s to say the dead don’t occupy
those places in the spectrum we can’t see?
Don’t tell me they don’t speak to those they loved
in life, in the language of sunlight and
tender breezes, at the margins of sleep
and in our dreams. If the moons of Mars can
shatter into glowing rings, if dead trees
can reach their heirs and feed them underground,
who’s to say that our departed won’t find
a way to hover close, to make amends,
beyond the limits of living matter?
Who among us hasn’t sensed their longing?
Copyright 2020 by Barbara Quick