By George Dibble
Over a dinner of crumbling bread and always filled glasses
Friends spoke of the dead and how they’ll sleep;
Of what grain of wood we’d take,
Lowered into our deep and eroding peace.
But you leaned in your wicker chair,
And swirled your amber glass and tapped the table.
Brushing your umber hair behind your ear
And glancing at your drumming fingers.
“I’d rather be lowered to ashes
And mixed in the soil of a quiet tree,” you said.
“Maybe an aspen whose colors
Spin from basil to apple and maple.”
***
So now, in the grove behind our home,
When the leaves shrink and our children dance indoors,
I walk past our empty bed to the room’s frosted window,
And see your knotted arms sway—your cold, aspen breaths—and hear your tapping fingers
drum.
George Dibble is interested in the mundane and intricate aspects of life. Although young, and still a student, Dibble hopes to shed light on the small moments, found within memories and small observations, that mold people into who they are. Dibble grew up in northern Florida and currently studies in Utah.
