Latecomers accepted.
Three days late, people keep hurrying
up, ceremonial clothes, bedding,
small supplies tied to their staffs,
staffs waving along the road
like anemone, a clear day,
the start of a second life.
A scuffle breaks out on the square
in front of me. A hawk,
being quicker, catches a mouse.
Just before the mouse is eaten,
it goes limp to end
the suffering. It looks straight
in the hawk's eyes.
There is no fear.
The mouse becomes the hawk,
lifts its wings, adjusts
to the currents.
Calli had a way
of twirling in place, chiton flaring
like wings, her face serious
as if she had arrived, before
everyone, somewhere important.
When she was dying,
I never left her side,
but I couldn't catch up to her.
Her brown eyes sank
deeper and deeper.
I followed them until
I was too afraid, that much I had
of the sacred, another life.