"ghosts of our old lives"

I saw your family today.
They are full of brave smiles
and unending hospitality.

I stepped inside your favourite place
expecting to feel familiar
but I felt like an outsider in a time capsule.

Like I was standing on the set
for the Sunday-night movie
someone made about your life.

Not that it was the real thing.

I touched your old things today.
Ran my hand down a stack of your breeches,
felt the weight of your riding bits,
touched your hats, your jackets,
your brushes, your tack.

Every last piece of material
that defined who you were --
and all of it will be gone.

I lay in your pasture today.
I sank into the grass and closed my weary eyes
against the bright white lights
of your Alberta sky.

I felt like sinking my whole body down.
Like growing into the earth beneath me
so that I could be closer to you.
So that I would be a part of you.

"I can't believe it's over," I said,
and looked up at the white clouds
in the bluest sky
And thought about the ghosts of our old lives.