(for Cliff)

On the 23rd anniversary of your last day on Earth
I walk through one of the prettiest parks in town,
the cemetery where we used to walk Buddy,
where I long imagined I would put you some day.

It didn’t turn out that way, of course.

But as I walk, I look for familiar names—

people I knew, people you knew,
people we worked with, dear friends
and slight acquaintances—

You all walk with me as the trees
begin to flower, and the bees tend
those blossoms.

The years of their deaths on markers
embedded in soft green always surprise me.
How can it be so long?

They rest here with thousands of others
as you rest in my heart now and always,

amene.