Little Tavern

Where are you,

Mom and Dad?

Do you rest?

Are you at peace?

Open air and sunshine

Salt and sand, warm stones

And the slurring sweep

Of ocean water returning

To the vastness beyond us

Called always.

No time to stay

Always a moon

A darkness

A dream

Elsewhere

With a promise

Of return.

Are you there

On that island

You called your own

When you were young,

That became our own

When we were a family--

The sunshine and wet sneakers

Coppertone and skin

That burned anyway

Lunch in paper wrappers

From the deli

Blankets and towels

And time

To face the sun.

Are you there?

And if not, where?

Where is peace,

And where is the rest?

(Little Tavern is the island in Long Island Sound near Norwalk Harbor where Mom and Dad wished to have their ashes scattered.)