At 8 I lost my best friend,

with the end of the school year she skipped right up two grades,

and there without I continued on,

no one near.

At 11, overnight, my best friend decided she hated me

and the girl to whom I’d tied my heart,

living right up the sidewalk at the top of the hill,

was gone.

At 15, my best friend, girl who searched with me dark star-filled skies

and distant philosophies, disappeared

right in front of me. On a path

between two pines, she separated,

saying it was over. No reason given. And walked away.

Years passed. Each returned

for a moment.

The first in a market near a pile of avocados,

wandering through with friends on a visit home from college.

Word reached me later

she died of cancer far too soon after.

The next circled back simply to say

she’d left me because everyone in her life had left her first

and she was keeping that from happening again.

The last found me by phone, states away,

wanting to say she’d ended our friendship

because I asked too many questions

and she, being confused enough on her own,

couldn’t take it.

More recent losses diminish even those crushing endings,

hitting harder still than death–

that visitor being inevitable, embraceable and understood.

How loss does shape us,

at times the shape taking decades to decipher.

Wonder steps in,

the companion who never rejects or abandons.

Wonder walks alongside, reverently,

devotedly.

A reminder comes in the morning song of hummingbird…

turn towards wonder, always

she sings,

towards wonder.