Ways Once Lived

The prepared practice of heavy provisioning

Gains with the gathering of family

And friends who frequent the festivities

Each year and work to alleviate

The burdens of the communal body

And mind. Full shelves, now emptier,

Mark that close cousins are fewer

And farther away in new areas,

And friends are elsewhere now helping

Their own loved ones in need.

Memories bring forward the bittersweet understanding

That you may be the last

Remaining to remember the boisterous laughs

Escaped, voiced with past hurts lightly

Healed over with time and tenderly

Faced through ways once lived together.