Memorial Flowers

 

Tomorrow we’ll attend your service of remembrance.  And I will remember you.  Your stories, your recipes, your smile and laughter at our beloved Labrador.  Your love of sweets, your faith in God.  I am happy your body held out and held up long enough to see you into an age many don’t survive to—and happy I got to know you.  It was a blessing to bless you.  To visit you and hear your voice of pride for your children, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter.  I hope I am as happy and delight-filled and delightful as you were in all my last days.

 

white natal plum blossom

dropped from the shrub

still scents the air on hummingbird wings

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

dVerse Haibun Monday: Memento Mori

 

for my beloved neighbor Mary

 

Here

Today, blue is a dusk-purple sunrise

shaken by wind,

cloudy

with a chance of—?

 

Rain.  No, I wouldn’t call it that.

Not from where I come from.

 

But here,

just a spattering of

little holes left in the sand,

a thumbprint’s depth

is all.

 

But here I take your hand,

walk where a coyote

shimmies up under the fence,

trotting off,

eyes darting.

He’s confident he’ll find prey here.

 

I should be so confident

you always provide

what I need.

And if you don’t,

and I die,

I die

provided for.

I am always in your hands.

 

I don’t believe this is all there is

any more

than I am all there is.

 

I didn’t create this breath in my lungs

or the lungs which breathe it,

didn’t create this dust

which matches my skin—

cells blowing away into

the atmosphere.

 

I didn’t create my own life—

that’s your job.

I am to live it—that’s mine.

 

And to you my life will go

when it’s done.

 

This sand, this dust

I am

to I AM.

 

 

© 2025 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

I AM:  Exodus 3:14, John 8:58

“If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”  Daniel 3:17-18

“For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.”  Hebrews 4:10