In the haze
and the shadow
I still see you

Fall clouds its air
on its warmer days. 
I was told once
it was from the slow burn-off
of life from leaves. 
I don’t know
if it’s true
but it should be;

because those are the days
when I miss you most
and I feel myself burning away too.

And in the haze
and the shadow
I still see you

I’m no metaphysician who wants
or needs to have it all explained.
I’m just a man in the middle of it all
who knows the past is past and usually
lets it go, but who now and then
falls into thought about you.

Here’s how it was: you were here,
we were close, you left
and then you were past and gone.
I haven’t seen your grave in years.
I don’t need to see it to know you’re not there,

for in the haze
and the shadow
I still see you

and sometimes I’m frightened
but more often I’m amazed
that it seems no miracle
but natural as the leaf-smoke of autumn
that you’re everywhere at once.

Age has a way of sharpening your eyes.
Age has a way of letting you see what matters
without clouding your sight
with the need to understand
the immediate reactions of your youth;

in the haze
and the shadow
I still see you

and really, I am comforted
with the fact that I do not know
if you are ghost or delusion,
my mind playing tricks on me
or the binding of our unfinished business
to the season of its interruption;

let someone else decide.
All I know is there are times
(when there is no wind to rattle the dead leaves
that litter the ground, when the sun recalls summer
at the height of day) when I still love you
as I did, and

I see you
through the shadow
through the haze

and know that though winter’s coming,
for this moment we are still warm
and you’re here as if
you’d never passed.