Happy birthday, Julie.

March 21, 2013

Today you would be
thirty-six, and I search my memories
of us two decades ago, did you think
and plan and dream this far
ahead through the years we fly
and stroll and crawl and sometimes sleep
until the world around us changed, in a way
too big to be tamed.

Is this what life is, a series of sparks
that sometimes ignite and sometimes die
up into the night between fire and light
and I know when I look in your daughter's eyes
that laugh and dance and sing your name, it's hard
to become slow and quiet, like the owl
who stands watch over the flames.