Traversing darkness while moving toward light

I sat with a friend around a fire in our yard

We talked of children, the craft of writing, of basketball

an ideal job, a feral cat he gave a friend

and the one he still feeds on his porch

We talked of possums, guinea hens, ticks, raccoons

and a hawk that swooped up a snake in the park

We talked of loneliness and how nothing and no one

should be alone

A possum emerged from the park

waddled like a drunk on a bender along the trees

ignoring the humans stirring a fire waiting

for the glow to go out of wood

I woke dreaming of my mother

how after my father died and how after the nurses

washed his body, my sister woke her

She came into the room and said, “Oh, Chester”

reached out her hand and adjusted

the wisp of hair on his head

I lined up vitamins by the computer, made coffee

sent a text to a friend whose father is on hospice

looked at pictures of a friend whose mother just died

prayed for my sister, her children and their grief

and tried to think if there is anyone I should sit with

because nothing and no one

should be alone

1-27-20