Attending This Solitude

		for J, gone three years

Less sleep becomes the norm, more early rising.
From lakeside one pink morning, impressions mist in
with deer from the forest… float away with them
taking all words the tongue wanted.

High in thin air, where we hiked together,
lounging an hour in lodgepole silence
brings vague consolation. More and more
come hours without the need to feel useful…
regret doesn’t follow.
		 ~~
I miss the yard trees we planted where we lived
all those years, have found nothing more beautiful
than dogwoods in bloom, their blossoms
like small souls ascending.
Our mantle clock has lost it’s chime…
I’m more lonely without it..
		~~
Family reunion without you, my body again
nearing the vast Pacific: once more that posture
of recognition, the long pull of the sea…
my breath a tidal rhythm, night air full and resonant,
as if holding things we’ve all forgotten.
		~~
There come hours now when solitude seems
too much, more when solitude seems best.
Salt crystal stars from this high elevation are bold
white asterisks… signaling all that needs translation.

Nights of halo-silver moonrise, a kind of holy,
almost-sound. Have you heard it?

Dixie Partridge grew up in Wyoming, and lived most of her adult life along the Columbia River. Her poetry has won national and regional awards, and appeared in many journals, including Poetry Magazine, The Georgia Review, Southern Poetry Review, and most recently Ars Medica, Kaliedescope, Blueline, MacGuffin, and Dialogue. Her two published books are: Deer in the Haystacks (Ahsahta Press); Watermark, recipient of the Eileen Barnes award. Personal impact of landscape is often at the root of her writing.