To You

I’ve walked among the broken and handed out biscuits
And smiles
As I’ve wondered down the streets of the town
From block to block and slow side street to busy corner
And stoop
Greeting your eyes with a kind word or directions, if I knew
Them or you cared to hear
My whispered wishes riding the winds reaching your ears
“Lift up your heads and nod to one another”
I shook hands or waved to those of you that I knew
Or wished to know me
Encouraged those of you who sit, not knowing what you
Wait for
Sang with the street musicians, roaming about for dimes
I shared what was in my lungs with you
And you, others that are to come
The plants that kept me alive, their ancestors will you
What I breathe in at fall, their seed in your spring delight you
When there were parks I would watch the young parents
Watching their wards
Or feed the squirrels with those who had passed that time
Before me
But I feel your pulling away like the moon moving away from
The earth at only millimeters a decade
I feel the stretch of the universe, that movement of time
The town has become a city and there are too many streets for me
To cross
I leave those to you
I’ve sang my songs and now it is up to you to carry and call the tune
What materials that I was blessed to use is yours
I’m reduced to the atoms from which I rose
And into the silence that I was