poem of the day

God bless TriMet (Portland's public transportation system) -- they have put poems up along the insides of the buses. So, while you're riding along in a stupor, if you happen to glance up, you might find yourself reading something lovely like this:

Separation

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

-- W.S. Merwin

I was thinking about SK when I saw this. But then, when I googled the poem, I ended up on a memorial website for a little kid who, the site explained, died at 6 years old, at home with his family and his puppy. Changed the atmosphere a little, and tears sprung to my eyes. Made me think of my brother, who also died at home with family around. Made me think of my family, my dad, stepmother and the other brother, the twin who survived -- these people who haven't seemed to talk about Isaac since the day he died, as though his death wiped every trace of him off the earth. I wonder if they each, in solitary silence, *privately* feel their lives stitched with his color. I can only imagine that they do.