In the way you went you were important.  
I do not know what you found. 
In the pattern of my life you stand 
where you stood always, in the center, 
a hero, a puzzle, a man.

What you might have told me 
I will never know—the lips went still,  
the body cold. I am afraid, 
in the circling stars, in the dark, 
and even at noon in the light.

When I run what am I running from? 
You turned once to tell me something, 
but then you glimpsed a shadow on my face  
and maybe thought, why tell what hurts?  
You carried it, my boy, so brave, so far.

Now we have all the days, and the sun  
goes by the same; there is a faint,  
wandering trail I find sometimes, off  
through the grass and sage. I stop 
and listen, only summer again—remember?— 

The bees, the wind.