Go, and create, you said
with your eyes, a few words spoken into my soul—
You have something to say, something to offer,
and the world needs to hear it.

Impatient, almost,
you always checking on my progress
to move, to contribute, to change this world,
your words pushing my procrastination.

“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

“When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”
― Mary Oliver

You left us too soon, yet,
and yet, your words
to live fully, with passion,
echo throughout my being
in the silence
left in your passing
into the beautiful, the mysterious
next.

—Neal Lemery, June 2013

In memory of and tribute to my friend, Judy Allen