(for Cliff)

Deep in the night I dream
you holding a sphere of light,

a mass that requires both hands—
do you still have hands?—

though light, it turns out is, well,
light, hardly weighs a thing,

pretty much weightless, but
cradled in your palms gets molded

like weightless clay into something
bigger than a softball, ready

to be thrown into the darkness,
splatting photons like paint splotches,

brightening whatever it sticks to.
Which might be me.

Which might be the reason
I suddenly feel lighter after

a weighty season. You lob light
gently at me the way you did

that long-ago spring when we stood
in our back yard and you taught

grownup me how to catch a softball
with your massive mitt the texture

of a broken-in saddle. Eyes on
the ball, Toots, you said,

your voice reaching me as it does
from the wherever, melting the heavy,

turning it into a trickle of burnished
gold that trails down my cheek,

illuminating my cupped hands,
warmed by your now and forever light.