We were just a sea of people,

a sea of memories

each a wave upon the sand.

Years for years

it can all end so fast

and the women guiding

"Now that she enters the shadow of the valley of death."

Heads lowered

lips bowed;

"Amen"

the years swallowed up

taking away the little girl

who stood for hours outside of the Zsa Zsa

hoping to catch a glimpse of the Beatles.

"Amen"

God left her

with a thirteen-year-old daughter

and a widowed husband.

I listen

inside the melancholy

hearing the sobs.

She traced the blue lines

of her veins

across the centuries

and knew the names of the inhabitants

of her blood three hundred years ago.

What was it in us that she heard

an arm around my shoulders

a friend

a follower

in a hoop skirt

keeping company with the past.

Laughter

inside the blue

the doctor said it wouldn't be long now.

"She belongs

to the centuries."

God has taken her,

unaware

that bones can give so much

and take so much away.

We were just a sea of people

a sea of memories

each a wave upon the sand

of her.