Last night we prayed together,
pleaded your father be spared his sickness.
Today, trying to pray without you,
following the cut bank on the creek
where yesterday’s ice storm
shines like all the sounds
you always use to talk to God.
Words I never remember alone.

I bow my head to white fire, to silver trees,
the snow hiding what I know is beneath—
moving rusted water that soon will feed the fields,
green born of ice and sleet.

Night is here—almost home
where news is waiting—another diagnosis.
I want to have something to say to you
when I arrive, but can only think
there must be some difference
between being quiet and being silent:
that want finds what must be said between us
and uncertainty bears the mute sting of belief.