Ursa Minor

For H who was first, K who was next, and R who was last. Without you, any/all of you, I would still be wandering, lost in the night.

Why do I still after all these years seek you out?
You are my guide through the minefields. You give
me safety, a haven, leading me over hillocks and ditches.
Ditches I’ve dug till my palms have bled,
dug to hide the wounded, the infirm.

The markers and flares that burst over head cast a
sallow light allowing me to see who I’ve left in
waters so cold that their very bones ache.
Aching as does my beating heart bound in
the sounds of despair and pain that wind round us.

I need to go on, for the flares also light our path
forward, your hand lightly holding my arm.
Your whisper, soft, in my ear, says not to worry,
for they will find their own way even back to dust.
They are not to be buried. Burial would be forgetting.

You remind me that the furrows I’ve dug
are not meant for me, that new tasks await me
as the little bear shows us my way home, that three
isn’t five in my new world. The three remaining strayed
as I kept an eye on the dragon, turned their backs, gone.

Three isn’t five, you whisper again, placing a soft
hand gently on my back, giving me momentum to glide
across the new landscape stretching infinite before me.

And at once I see it all.