A promise

It’s funny how a heart can be heavy
and yet a bit lighter at the same time
strange that you’d already said goodbye
and only some time later I come to reply

How do you part from precious friends
when they’ve become something more
part of the cornerstone on which we stand
integral to the very fabric of our lives

How can a friendship still in its infancy
have come to mean so much, so soon
only because of an awareness of time
that for some it stretches too short a way

I remember these words you wrote to me
“Isn’t it great we get to know each other,
don’t you think so??” Can you imagine
how wonderful those words were to read

And it captures something quite rare
an openness for sure, but there’s more
a willingness to share your own heart
calling up a response from deep within

With little time heart must speak to heart
and so it was that our friendship was forged
even as the battle intensified towards its end
as you walked in the fire that cancer brings

Leaving us to look on from the flames edge
as they slowly engulfed you, dear heart
until at last release has come to free you
with wings you rise even as the flames die

There’s a place beyond where no regrets exist
what passes for currency there you already have
in such abundance as to be rich beyond compare
the thought of that lightens my heavy heart

It only remains for me to say this last thing
no, this is not goodbye, that I will not abide
we both know that life goes on in the beyond
I will always remember the promise we made.