I walked the streets of London, of Edinburgh too, wishing I ran into you like I did before. Drinking coffee and single malt, remembering your intrusion into my dreams, I wept while writing in my journal of delusions.

I drove the roads of Minnesota and wandered the back ways of Ontario searching for something I lost. Pursuing ghosts along the paths through the North Saskatchewan valley; two hundred steps down, two hundred steps up – no dice.

Wending down the paths of peace, veering off on the rutted trails of war, I just swore. Pledges and proclamations filled the air with all their vacuous substance. I kept my holy just for you but one day it was trampled underground.

We kept all the rules that claimed to keep us safe. They were lies uttered by innocence. Tears washed away our reticence and we were closer to the truth of it all.

Watching the fireworks of the very last year before the great calamity befalls, my tears remember your tenderness and I hear you whisper my name. You are looking to the sky holding another man’s arm. I am looking from above a million miles away.

My song unsung, my bell un-rung, feeling the distance of your warmth and the nearness of all I feel. All the instruments are crying the blues and feeding these tears, imprisoned in this futile time and space. This is the demonstration that it all really did matter and it still does, that is what eternity is!

Fully grieving is the finest place, just ask Hyohnwatha when he lost it all! His beautiful wife and then all of his precious daughters suddenly disappeared in the curse of an eye. No one would comfort him, they were too afraid of opening their own heart – they were afraid of their tears. He cried until he could cry no more, all the heaving gone. Then he said he’d condole the griever with wampum strings.

I will not be afraid of my tears. I will not be afraid of my heart. Throw me in jail. Tear me apart. You’ll never be the source of denial. You can’t belittle my trial. The depth of my river of tears leads me to the highlands of Caledonia and the sweet warmth of a hearth.