For Courtney Schusterbauer; 6-11-69-8-15; 78 Poem by Will Schusterbauer

Once,
perhaps,
I thought-or hoped-
that decades would make the difference.

I was so profoundly mistaken.

Thirty-three years gone,
and still, from time to time,
I wonder what you might have become.

With your laughter
(like wind chimes singing bravely
into the night) .

And your art.

And your wondrous awareness
of the life within you,
the life surrounding you.

Memory,
it lifts us up,
sends us soaring.

Memory,
it plunges us
into depths
we could never have fathomed.

In the sweet, tender center
of my memories

you come to me,
shimmering with light and lace,

And I am brought to my knees,
in both sorrow
and genuflection.