A Gathering of Neighbors
 
I lived in New York City where we had no neighbors.
People
Over us
Beside us
Under us.
When my father died, hundreds of letters came
From the city and around the world
but no one came to call.
 
When my father-in-law died in ranch country
Four hundred crammed his service,
One hundred fifty his house.
 
When Jon died,
The whole village came.
 
 
A Gathering of Family
 
My sister with her son and two daughters gathered
when her husband died last week.
Instead of a service
her sisters and brother will gather 'round her in June,
will gather one by one to her side in the months ahead.
 
 
A Gathering of Friends
 
Silently they walk
across worn flagstones to the
red brick meetinghouse
 
Enter. Two hundred-
year-old dark oaken benches
smell of Friends' history.
 
The meetinghouse is
as it was then: Gathering
for silent meeting.