(Lake Tahoe, west shore,
in memory of Margery Thompson)

Five days after you die,
we head to the Big Blue,
the high mountain lake
where all manner of
spirits live, and now,
we imagine, you have
joined them.

The Wa-She-Shu,
the ancestral people,
migrated here each
summer from the hot
Carson Valley to fish
and hunt and gather
berries at da-ow-a-ga,
“edge of the lake.”

Surely they continue
in spirit form, their
Washoe descendants
honoring them to this
day,

as we remember you,
talking story about
“the time when…,”
carrying your love
with us to the ends
of our days.

With luck, one day
we might join you
and the spirits whose
lights we see dancing
under dark clouds
to the east,

from our spot here
at the end of your
final summer season,
in a little room called
Evergreen Heaven
at the edge of the lake.