Echo at the Threshold

I must have known—

before the telling,

before the scans and silent rooms.

It was there,

in the breathless pause

between your sentences,

the way your eyes held mine

as if memorizing

how I would carry sorrow.

You said it was nothing—

a shadow,

“Just a little thing,”

tucked behind the ear.

But the trees knew.

They had already begun to still.

In the hush of morning

you folded time

into story:

pages of myth and memory,

mapped with the ink

of all your living.

Your pen—

a sword that never pierced,

only planted.

Every line,

a seed.

You never said goodbye.

You planted shrubs

for each of us in your garden,

watching them

for signs we could not see.

When mine wilted,

you called.

The wind paused

to hear you breathe.

The soil remembered your footsteps.

And Silence—

that patient witness—

kept the space

between your last word

and mine.

Now I gather what you left:

your journals,

your poems,

your unfinished allegory.

I hear your voice

on every margin,

carried root-deep,

unfolding in each turning page—

an echo

still at the threshold.