June 21st

A Friday like any other
A Friday like none other
Summer Solstice,

The hotel phone wakes me
Its haunting tone won't stop,

Groggy, I recall
I'm on the road
Hundreds of miles from home.

Fumbling blindly for the clock
Nobody knows where I am,

Muffled voices invade my senses
Too scared to open the door
I barely make a sound,

My mind can conceive the visit
My heart doesn't want to know,

Standing, staring, deathly stiff
Studying the strangers through the hole
They're whispering and in uniform,

Opening the door, I await news
They hesitate, then begin,

His Pathfinder flew off a cliff...
Taking a decade of love down with him
They're sure, he never saw it coming,

It happened yesterday around dusk
Perched at the top of a cliff,

Photographing his love of nature
He had a panoramic view around
And didn't see what would befall him,

Loop in hand, I keep him close
Scanning through the shots he captured.

***I have a lifetime to relive his vision***