Visiting A Sister Poem by Suki Nakamura

she lives at the deep part of the
mountain
a sea of trees and a shoreline of grasses
now she is stricken with cancer
and dying
she says she will not last for another day
and she gives me her treasure
she kept for years
her life and now the time has come
to entrust what she wrapped
with red silk
her manuscripts of poems
her dreams and fantasies
her lamentations
her dialogue with the cliff
her songs to the pebbles
her love of life
her surrender to death
her communion with nature
her story of the river
her prayers offered to the sea
her belief to the might of the sun
her tranquility with the moon.