We shall see each other again, she said,
but don’t come now.
The truth is, she said,
I don’t want you to remember me this way:
frail and sad, slipping away.
Dying.
Instead, how about this?
How about you go to the ocean and
walk through the waves crying
while beautiful black shells wash up at your feet and
sea gulls scream into the winds
above you.
You can take carnations and fling them into the surf
and you can sing a song of your making
that will float
all the way from California to Indiana
to my waiting ears and
I will send you snowflakes and baby robins and oak leaves
and everything wonderful
that I can offer from my world
and you can send me
coyote songs and sun rises and mountains
and everything wonderful
from your world and
all these infinite joys will mix together
into a jeweled labyrinth
of our friendship and
then of course
one day
we shall see each other again
but not now, not now.
Just not now.

*title is from the last line of the book, Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh