This poem is in tribute to my brother Armand, who lived a rich, full, and loving life, and who died recently at the age of 92. For a time, he lived on a small farm in rural Maine, the setting for this poem.
To My Brother on His Magic Farm
Honey light healing the bark of trees
shadows drifting toward the sheltering barn
necklaces of flowers, breeze-driven
silence of singing cicadas
sky utterly blue, clouds fairest white
you, my brother, kneeling, working some rough tool,
scraping along the fence, fully concentrated
your dear companion, silver hair blessed with sun,
standing swept by wind in her garden
I will know you this way forever.
Here in the comfort of the farm
held by soft and silent hills
you will live beyond my dreams
through all time and ages
I will always come here,
find you standing by.
It could not be
that this sweet place
will one day be no longer
that sky and earth will be erased
and your old bones
lie beneath the tree.
I know the farm dwells forever
its cabbages always bloom,
honeybees find their perfect flower.
I touch you under sunlight radiant like no other
peace enters my body like a river
the hawk circles twice, and flies away.