goodbye then. see you.

today i thanked my dad as i placed a rose on his casket. i thanked him for everything . . . not just the good stuff. everything.

i wrote the following on tuesday evening . . . walking alone and letting the wholeness of his life (as i have experienced it) wash through me.

this evening i walk along a snow-covered road. the air is clear as glass . . . breath leaves my mouth in foggy clouds that the wind catches and tears like pieces of silk.

at the end of the road is a lake.

on a night like this you can hear the lake before you can even see it.

far out at sea the tiny flickers of white-crested wave caps roll and break .

the wind hurls the bigger waves shorewards.

resting on the deep black of the horizon-line rises a band of dark purple clouds fading to tangerine, salmon, and pale violet. the last washes of day as seen through a weak light - thin and distant.

flying from east to west a lone canada goose.

it is then that i say to my dad - “goodbye then. see you”.