The final part of this day I immersed myself in the woods
\which I always do at times like these.
I come here to the forest and the creek at Emlen,
And I fall into a trance of a different time
The three of you running ahead of me,
The world and nature and all its gifts
Laid out in front of us like a grand museum.
The excitement you felt in the discovery
The curiosity, gathering sticks and rocks and leaves
And placing them in the car.
We were explorers back then,
escapism and leaving all behind, the all representing
Sorrow, and grief at the loss of my mother,
All at once in the Winter, she became sick so quickly.

Each morning met me with the heartache of losing her
In the first light half sleep
It felt like some tragic nightmare I didn’t deserve.
Then I’d hear you talking in your rooms, making plans
Imaginary games you would play
gloom that felt like something heavy on me
Would start to dissipate.
You’d save me, each day you saved me from myself.
We’d venture out not knowing our destination,
Songs in the car and childhood chatter
And we’d land in the woods and there would always be a creek,
the three of you leaning over,
crouching down, picking up special rocks,
Something pulls you to it - colors, cracks and pretty lines,
geological textures marking time,
calling out to one another, comparing souvenirs.
Assembling bunches of sticks and feathers, and
we’d put things in bottles and bags to carry back home.
sometimes we would wear boots, so we could
wonder through the edges and the banks of the narrow creeks.
That special sloshing sound, black boots to the knee
And minnows at our feet.

Today I sit at the edge of the creek alone,
Some inner compass always brings me here.
I can hear your voices too, accompanied by
the monarch butterflies hesitant flutter
through the wild sunflowers and asters.
Late July’s afternoon sunlight,
Places dappled patches of gold at my feet.

Making my way out of the forest
I hate to leave and lose the reverie of us in the past.
And there at my feet - Oh, this feather, and the surprise of it!
I stoop down to pick it up just like you did.
The clarity of it, just a touch of blue, stripes of black and white
Such orderly filaments and fibers.
And now passing me on the winding path, a child and his father
holding his hand, first steps, awkward thrilling steps,
waving at me, I wave back with the feather, and he laughs,
and I continue to wave it in the air.
The gentle breeze it makes, simplicity and genius
helping to keep one singular Jay aloft.

What I know is this - a sunny July day can not cure me of
my worry or sadness, In February’s dark bleak and cold,
I thought it was the tonic, but it is not.
It is this -
a child, a tree, a whispering creek,
Stately rows of chestnut trees rising above you like guardians of your thoughts
And this token, this Blue Jay’s feather.
Here it sits next to me now upright in a glass with earrings, pens and pencils
It will always bring me back to us and those days of long ago,
Memories of my young motherhood days with you
and our young explorations that saved me,
Saved me from a sorrow a long time ago
and continues to save me
from my sorrow today.