my dear

Given all the talk about her going on, you knew it was just a matter of time before I posted Howard Nemerov's poem for his sister, right?  Right.

To D–––, Dead by Her own Hand

My dear, I wonder if before the end
You ever though about a children’s game –
I’m sure you must have played it too – in which
You run along a narrow garden wall
Pretending it to be a mountain ledge
So steep a snowy darkness fell away
On either side to deeps invisible;
And when you felt your balance being lost
You jumped because you feared to fall, and thought
For only an instant: That was when I died.

That was a life ago.  And now you’ve gone,
Who would no longer play the grown-ups’ game
Where, balanced on the ledge above the dark,
You go on running and you don’t look down,
Nor ever jump because you fear to fall.

--Howard Nemerov