G-BABY

Loving you has been the joy of my life.
Smooth roads turned rocky for us quickly
And you stayed.
Our love grew stronger in the strife.

Sent from a wish I blew to the heavens, you came to me.
You came to save me before I knew I needed it.
You came to carry me through tragic times
And challenges I had yet to foresee.

You loved me when no one else would.
When my sister died it was you who stood behind me catching my fall.
You’ve done for me all and more than even you thought you could.
You came to hold me every time I called.

I am both a child and a woman in your arms.
You rock and comfort me with your strength and tenderness.
You stand against the world that means to harm.
I am your angel, your Princess, and I am clearly your mess.

You saved me, carried me, more days than I can thank you for.
I am here for you whenever you need me my sweet man.
I promise, I promise I’m yours, I’m here forever more.
I will do for you everything that I can.

Loving you has been the joy of my life.
Our love grew stronger in the strife.

JUNEBUG, I TAG THE FLUTTERING SHIRT OF YOU

I lost my sister to a violent death. She was taken from us by another, an angry other, but I try to block that from my mind and recall memories of her. I want to remember HER today, this anniversary of her death. I want to remember who she was, not how she died, struggling and fearful. My mother talks about those last moments of her life and I tell her that what I know in my heart to be true, and only in my heart: Angels came into that room while he was strangling her; they carried her to a more beautiful, serene place of peace while her body remained in the dying.
Ten years have past and I dig in my vaulted memory for the tenderness, her giggle, her playfulness, her, her, her...JuneBug. I am sad today. My soul calls out to her today with loud screaming voice, an aching wail, a sorrowful melody.

This poem by Carl Sandburg comforts me.

SHIRT
I REMEMBER once I ran after you and tagged the fluttering
shirt of you in the wind.
Once many days ago I drank a glassful of something and
the picture of you shivered and slid on top of the
stuff.
And again it was nobody else but you I heard in the
singing voice of a careless humming woman.
One night when I sat with chums telling stories at a
bonfire flickering red embers, in a language its own
talking to a spread of white stars:
It was you that slunk laughing
in the clumsy staggering shadows.
Broken answers of remembrance let me know you are
alive with a peering phantom face behind a doorway
somewhere in the city's push and fury
Or under a pack of moss and leaves waiting in silence
under a twist of oaken arms ready as ever to run
away again when I tag the fluttering shirt of you.

--Victoria Hart
photo credit: Diane Varner dianevarner.com