Photograph

In this one you are hovering above the village of Monthey like smoke or fog. Dwaine will say it has to do with heat and cold, pressure and altitude, but I see you there.

You are no longer strung about with the golden cords of our desire, our longing for you, but are free to move among us, above us and below. Freed from your flesh and bone, you hover weightless, all intention and light. Nothing to encumber the perfection of your intent.

Your mother will howl tonight, your father melt into a medicated bliss, because you are gone from them and will not return. Not the way they want--their boy in his blue down coat, ruddy cheeks and mussed hair the color of straw.

No, you are something different now and I glimpse you beyond my prayer flags, slinking along the base of the mountain we climbed last fall. It is a glorious resting place, but of course you are only there when I am looking--the way I need to see you, in the place I need you to be.