Sometimes at night, alone in darkness,
I look at the moon's large Tycho crater.
Something alien hit there once, hard,
Where the radial rays of ejecta dominate
Sometimes at night in a spirit of darkness
I remember over fifty years ago Cathy,
My girlfriend, was killed in a car accident
As something alien cratering into my life
I remember the impact scarring me,
Radiating pain, emptiness, helplessness.
Still she hurt and she bled, not me,
She was buried, not me. I went on.
The emptiness in my life slowly filled
But her distant death remains like a crater
In my emotional mindscape even today
The ejecta of her death still affecting me.
One night alone, over fifty years later
I googled her name and searching
found a photo of her gravestone.
I'd been there, put flowers there.
Sometimes at night I think of the futility
of my remembering her. My life went on.
Maybe I should have forgotten her,
Gone on without remembering. Instead.
But maybe my remembering her somehow
Keeps her spirit alive, the last of her life.
I wonder if anyone fifty years from now
Will remember me while looking at the moon