Remembering

I give you grace--
that thing we both gasped for
like drowning men who wrench
their necks to break the water line.

It's hard to understand
someone so high up,
a man whose knees hurt
so he couldn't get down
to play on the floor very often.

But you did give me grace.
You must have known that ground
where my soul stared like a frightened rabbit
and fought fantastic shadows.
At least, you walked there with me,
beaming the flashlight again and again and again.

Now, even as I analyze this sad emptiness
over the floor boards, I give something back--
if only to memory's echos:
I give you grace.