Everything to Come, Even This
 

– for Ben –

At first it was a colour. Surprisingly clear, I’d thought
purple. Though it doesn’t really matter,
I’d like you to know it was a specific shade. An August shade
of purple. I never would have associated
summer’s end with it, with that, but now I do.

The Ottawa riverbanks were filled with it. The rain, not falling but traveling, wind-carried curtains of grey
sweeping the new dimension between us. The car I was in: 
a bullet tearing through them. The windows streaked and I remember thinking “look how nature mourns for you.”

The east-bound highway, terribly flat, held
the hour ahead, held our distance and these thoughts,
that almost-lilac colour and everything to come,
even this poem. How I just wanted that hour to end.
Knowing you already had. Already slipped
from the   here   where I was
watching fields upon fields of purple. 

I wasn’t crying yet —I was asking. Already talking
to you, saying I’d put you in that shade, because
I had to put you somewhere. You were taking off with the rain and I had to put you somewhere, for me. 

But it’s October now, brother. The riverbanks
are too cold for these sensitive things. The winged-
wildflowers have closed and fallen, too, and I’m back
in the city that’s kept your shadows. I’m here
remembering that I had you
once, in a colour. I’d said purple, 
Disturbingly clear.

[ October 2016 ]