you drove away, West,

from Chicago, annoyed, yet exhilarated
while i was full of held tears,
a mother, trying to mother a boy,
on his bold edge of two decades of life

2014 was a rough
half year to June

we lost our first person to fetanyl
but he would not be [y]our last

i witnessed your grandmother’s January bitter coldness for the second time
and i still have a lasting bone chill from it

by the time you drive across the Mississippi River,
you have forgiven me
but i, you — even before you drove out of our alley,
we keep forgiving one another, me and you.

a couple of weeks later,

i am with our first, sweet dog in our Sun-filled back yard, as he is given a gentle, good death / we have shared so many firsts, but this,

i/we do without you; 17 years — ours, for sixteen — this loyal and strong dog that you chose on Mother’s Day weekend on LaSalle Street

how can it ever be a home again without you, without him

we soon follow, traveling 1,380 miles West, on I-80,
to mark the completion of the 20 orbits of the Sun
we have traveled with you, my son

i always want — and hope, to know exactly how many miles you are away from me.

you are marking the end of your second decade of life by working the summer in the Teton Range — on and along the banks of the Snake River

i awaken
in a tent cabin with a wood-burning stove, a bear box, and to the constant surprise of these youngest mountains that burst from this gorgeous valley,

these landforms, surreal, until you touch them, stand on and with them, breathe them in, our eyes can’t hold all this truth and beauty

soon, you call urgently; we arrive, and i speak with the doctor as if he’s a pediatrician: you’re a still a teenaged boy for a few hours more;
i stare at you all day — watching for signs of concussion — like you’re our baby once again / in my vigil, i see that you are a beautiful, still vulnerable, and yet, capable young man

the next day, the date of your birth,
we hike the trail up and around Jenny Lake,
miles through fresh and ancient debris from recent snow and rock avalanches;
i discreetly search for, then pocket, a perfect hunk of granite – from The Grand.

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i contemplate
my/our decadal birthday gifts to you:

10th year: silver,
a chain from my great grandfather with a buffalo head nickel inlay pendant and
a blade — you select an abalone-clad pocket knife during our 2004 trip

20th year: a hunk of granite, and
a blade

30th year: tbd, but likely wool – perhaps a monogrammed Pendleton blanket – the Zion or Yellowstone pattern, and a blade of some sort

last week, June 2024, you asked me for one of the only two personal possessions i have of my first father, a man who died exactly ten years plus one day before your due date and whom i only barely knew: a handmade multi-tool knife found in a small box of his things hurriedly handed to me on the day of his funeral in June 1984

i don’t say yes. i don’t say no, either. but i think we both know that his knife is already yours

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this is the decade you lose your only known grandfather; your first real and tender loss

this is the decade you go to high school, a baptized and confirmed CTA bus pass card-carrying city kid, a fully-fledged Chicagoan

this is the decade you spend a summer living primitively in Alaska with nine strangers dig deep and discover some of your Self

this is the decade you go due West for college, a whole culture shock

this is the decade you partake of a buffalo’s still-warm, raw heart in the Dakotas and see for yourself more truths about this nation and the People, who were always — and still here.

this is the decade you fall in love for the first time

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we gift you a wooden-handled hatchet with a leather sheath for the completion of your 20th revolution around the Sun, (from Blain’s Farm & Fleet)

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it’s my 20th revolution around you too, but my summer sonlight has been dimming with each passing year, now

your father again invokes and instructs a tradition:
that, if i am, we are, to gift you a blade,
you must give me, give us, a coin in return
so that our “friendship” is not severed

you give me a coin as insurance

but, me and you,

though, we have just cut these apron strings,

we, are connected by an invisible, eternal cord,

inseverable,

my June and Always, Sonlight.