| Footprints 'All I know is something like a bird within her sang.' I look for her in the morning, the mockingbirds in her garden still asleep. She is not in the hall or lying by the rockingchair, watching daylight take the fences and the orange trees. Her leash is gone from the kitchen and her toys, so I go out. There's sourgrass by the corner; any dog would stop and sniff. Not there, so I drift a moment, over the freeway, to the bluffs where I used to watch her run. Look, footprints where the trail turns to sand and the salt smell of the sea comes up. Someone small has stopped here just to dance, and see how the tracks stop, as if she danced a little while, then flew off. |
| Poems in Memory of Stella Kyle Kimberlin |
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| Called Away "Every person gone has taken a stone to hold and catch the sun. The carving says, "Not here, but called away." -William Stafford I turn the morning over and over like a stone, the road ahead of us falling away into fog, though the day was clear. The sea hangs there, a plastic backdrop for the scene with boats painted on. Two months pass, the lilacs bloom and the mockingbirds come back, chatter and sing, swoop at trespassing swallows. I put your toys away, and learn that gravity gets worse, like weather. I will not forget the needles, the way you seemed to celebrate the lights, nor fail to thank God that my mother stood and turned away before the poor world made a last appeal for influence, and touched your face with death. June 8, 2000 Kyle Kimberlin |
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