Lené Gary
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Thank You Letter to a Best Friend
all you had to do
was say Go outside
and introduce yourself
over and over again
until I could not separate
my love from the trees
this is how I knew you, the
world, and one day, like geese
you had to go.
some never return
in the spring
At least not the same way, I’m sure
you’d say to me.
for two years, I’ve
been going back
to the put-ins, watching us paddle
away. I can only stand there
so long trying to separate
what was from what is
my eyes well up with tears
knowing this was the point: what you
were trying to teach me.
I hear wing beats out of nowhere.
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Lené Gary is a writer, poet, and photographer living in the Green Mountains of Vermont. She has won national literary awards for her poetry and creative nonfiction and holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her recent publications include Limestone and Six Little Things. When she’s not writing, she can be found paddling her well-worn Mad River canoe.