exhausted by the want

i’ve got a habit  of collecting
my dark thoughts for the night

and then i count them
like sheep.

The books by my bed
are just place holders for dust, bookmarked
with old to-do lists
written on the back of unopened envelopes.

I am exhausted by the want.
This anxious emptiness
that comes from imagining more.

first of many waves

When Theo graduates from college you will have drawn 2,843 more of your people, perfected
the watermelon margarita for Jennifer, and found a way to avoid all ladder work.

You will have taught your grandsons about the power of words and whiskey and sitting still.

Oliver and Theo will have driven down the camp road over a thousand times; they’ll know the smell of the pine needles in the same way they know their own breath; they’ll have memories to match each mile it took them to get to your house.

So much of who I am is because of my grandfather.

How he raised you shaped how you raised us, and how Kelsey will raise the boys, and so on...

Grandpa's stories are me. Even the ones I've never heard and he never spoke out loud.

I wish we didn't have to die.  It seems the ocean takes it all back only a moment from when it laid us on the shore.

So we'll watch Theo and Ollie ride their first of many waves in your tide
letting them learn when to swim strong and when to let the current take them in.