Purple Flowers

-for Damien

I had given up on seeing anything beautiful
on this evening walk.
It felt right
to have the brown, red and green
of the leaves muted by the rain.
After all, you are gone
and I am sad.
It would not feel right
to have the sky be the clear blue
I could once find in your eyes.
But then, as I was choked by a sob
and pulled my hood up against the wind,
I looked and there was the most stunning bunch of purple flowers
right in front of me.
It was lighting up the evening.

It was like you, really,
the way your life seemed so very sad
to all of us who watched it.
So sad and so short,
tormented to the very end.
But then there were these beautiful flashes,
like the purple flowers,
of who was in there.
I saw it and I remember it.

I hope that now that you are gone-
you can rest in all the beauty
you could not see when you were alive.
I hope, at the very least,
you can see these purple flowers.