We gathered on the strand

Art credit - Frederick Leighton, Flaming June, 1895

We gathered on the strand
as her letter had asked;
each mourner held a page
from our friend who had passed. 

Some of us were singing,
each of us grieved
while we all mulled over
why our friend chose to leave. 

She’d fed the deer with apples,
had loved the hummingbirds;
was generous in action,
encouraging with words. 

We’d all have called her happy;
she seemed to have been.
We’d felt the gentle warmth 
of her sunbeams on our skin. 

When our tides had ebbed,
she’d never hesitate
to remind us to remember
all the ways we were great. 

She didn’t want for anything, 
had never seemed to lack;
none of us could recollect
a time when she’d asked. 

Yet she’d left us early,
and none of us knew why.
We only knew our friend
had decided to die. 

Sunset touched the ocean
and the village bell chimed;
time to read her letter 
by the sea, beneath the sky.

Our friend who hadn’t asked
had finally asked one ask alone…
“Be gentler with your self,
than I was with my own.” 

Lee DeNoya - Taos 2021
Dedicated to those who never ask, and those who wish we would