If everything you lose comes back around...
This short piece came from a writing prompt to honor and remember the dead.
If everything you lose comes back around in another form I imagine Alissa as bird feathers on a trail in Yosemite – then as the white foam on the falling water in the waterfalls we hiked to that day in April. She’s also the soft green moss hanging from the trees in Golden Gate Park, swaying above that patch of the park where kids are playing soccer and dogs are running free and on sunny days people lay on the grass and soak up the sun. If everything you lose comes back around in another form Dave is a glass beer bottle in a cold fridge at some dive bar in Montana. And then the ash from a cigarette that looks like snow as it flies through the air and hits the black wet pavement, and he’s the payphone with a haunted ring that everyone is always too afraid to answer. Grandpa is the pipe in the basement, and then the stain of red wine on the yellow table cloth, and then the silver coins wrapped in perfect plastic that some small child somewhere treasures. Aunt Cecelia is all miniature rose bushes with too many tiny thorns, flat tires on dead end streets, gum that sticks to your hair just to get a laugh, and the well-worn white shoes ready to walk to the market. Andrew is plastic toys and the hollow sound of too many electronic beats trying to make music. He’s the silence after someone says ‘I love you’, he’s the groan of a motor breaking down, the deep sigh on a too long drive. Grandma is the feel of a full belly, the underside of a cat's ear, the brown linen curtain sun soaked and gently moving in the soft summer breeze. She’s the eyes of the owl and the fresh feel of a cold gin & tonic on your tongue in the middle of July.
Loved the mini rose bushes !
Your writing is superb and really brings these people to life.