Dear June:
you are here so briefly (like it all is)
so when you invite me on long walks I drop everything to go
when we watch the clouds float by like thoughts, one right after the other,
I tell you people call this “doing nothing”
but you call it “being”
I introduced you to my little boy and
you two greeted each other like old friends (he’s wonderful like that)
we spend lots of time looking for my heart (I thought I left it on the desk by the colored pencils)
until I find it you tell me to trust my bones, that there is more wisdom in them than a college campus
(and I know you mean the wisdom that can’t be taught)
by the end of your visit I’ve learned to play my heart again (she was wedged between the guitar and the yoga mat where I left her at the end of May)
I ask you to stay a little longer
I’ve just gotten the hang of this “being”
you smile and promise to visit again next year, to see how the boy and the giant sunflowers have grown and to remind me to slow it down and trust my bones
you leave in the night when I am sleeping because you know goodbyes are hard for me (I’m so human like that)
but I’ll whisper it anyway today while I’m watching the clouds.
Monique Minahan 