White Out

Was I thinking of you this past weekend
as you were driving
to your hotel room through
thundercloud thoughts
and hurricane dreams
closing in all around?

Were you determined then,
while I remembered our youth
spent worshiping
Burroughs, Ferlinghetti, Morrison
&
those staggering feral nights
under star strewn skies
when the god in us
set off
into words all our own

so virgin
and sacrosanct
that our hearts pumped
closer to collapse
and
yet ached
so goddamned beautifully?

Was it by mistake-
did you really want the end to come
or just an ear to open
as I silently thanked you

for being awake
that cold winter’s night
when I had no where to go
and you let me inside
to sleep
a sleep I was too tired to dream of

all alone?
Before nodding off into the warmth
of your words saying…
“It’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok, it’s ok”
did you know how happy I was
you were watching over me?

I was thinking of you just this
past weekend
and now you are
forever young in my mind.
We-

will grow old and frail and cold
one day, and
you are eternal winter snow,
whiting out and covering our tracks
until all thought,
all hopes of retracing our past
will fade deep into the white-out of
existence.

You have gone before us,
and my prayer,
and I hope you can hear me,
is this- that you are now free

and at peace.

I was thinking of you only this weekend….

for Brian York