in Memoriam

There is a mango, plump and soft, filled with the juicy gift of its sweetness bleeding into a white ceramic bowl its over-ripeness. I cannot eat this food, this lingering fragrance of your kindness left on my doorstep the week you died. You have left this world for another state of grace and I, who am alive, listen to the mind’s pains of hunger for an answer to why I did not cut the sunflowers from my garden and bring them to you that evening they held the light of day burnished and gold as the glowing corona of Christ in all the Byzantine Icons. Sometimes, when the heart’s eye is opened to the round bloom of love, the body closes in its old cloak of fear, blind fingers tugging at the worn habit of protection, leaving emptiness in her beggar’s bowl.
Now, this bruised ovoid fruit, skin shinning its subdued russet flame speaks to me in the whispered shame of my heart calling forth its own forgiveness.