I cannot leave you a house–it wouldn’t be your home.
But I can bequeath you apples crisp against bright sky,
cinnamon, lavish and antique, beckoning with scent to far-off isles.
I cannot leave you diamonds–my pockets empty of all but poems.
But I can give you rainbows above the plunging falls,
the stars that wash riverine across the rumpled night.
I cannot leave you anything that men would judge of worth–
not cars, nothing of large numbers nor places of power.
But I can and I have and I do leave you
a dream the earth told me–
that one distant day or as soon as you wish,
the earth will be whole again
and all its parts at peace.
You are part of earth’s dream for itself,
sent here to make it real.
My part is to love you, to thank you.
…
—
© 2016 Susanne Donoghue