By Douglas J. Lanzo
Copyright 2023

First published in Founder’s Favourites (July, 2023)

We had planned
to release their ashes
in windswept mountain air
atop prehistoric rock
molded in the shape
of horses’ teeth,
as old as life itself,
but on the way
we passed a stream
tumbling in blue and white
beneath lofty cliffs.

My brother questioned whether
this would be more fitting
for our father’s ashes,
and those of his beloved wife,
our stepmother,
to be united once again 
in a stream of life,
flowing to the sea.

Recalling my father,
and his lifelong love of water —
a creature born and raised by sea —
who plied our pond,
and nearby lakes and streams,
with nightcrawlers we together caught,
serenity emblazoned on his face,
the choice was clear.

Climbing down an embankment,
we spotted rocks
pulsating color and sound
into the placid stream and
hopped along their path until its end.

There we released their ashes,
swirling in eddies, winding their way,
through gurgling waters,
speaking excitedly to each other,
together, free of pain,
recognizing each other, once more,
without the ravages of dementia
stripping them of everyone and everything
they had meant to each other.

Appearing over sun-soaked cliff,
a hawk approached,
circling over hallowed air,
crying in piercing tones
to sky, to earth, to stream,
as I gazed with bated breath,
unable to comprehend its meaning.

And then I saw and heard an answer,
as a second hawk crested nearby peaks
to join the first,
crying out in recognition.

In tranquility they soared
in tandem through the sky
above a sun-drenched stream,
where the ashes of my father
and stepmother blended and swirled,
drawn together in currents of love,
once more.