Sister

No longer grief
Empty, surpassed
Just missing you, still
Since I saw you last

Eight years, your eyes
Soulful and glad
A chance encounter
The last we had

Had I known then
What I see today
The early coming
Of your going away

I struggle to remember
But, then, had I known
I'd have chiseled each moment
To savor in stone

I'd have told you then
What the silence hid
What I saw
When, as a kid

A gift bestowed
A sacred token
A sister given
To fix the broken

And each passing year,
I remember more
From those 18 years
Your were mine to adore

Twelve years the elder
And, I, wide-eyed with awe
I wanted no more
Than to see what you saw

The fragile you showed
Yet, shrouded in wise
The patience and love
And warmth in your eyes

When memory rekindles
A faded moment shared
A new gift again
The broken repaired

It replays like a movie
Rewind, again and again
Till the clearer I see
My sister, my friend

More than I knew
What wouldn't last
How much was broken
After you passed

Like before I knew you
Before I met,
The sister I'd grow
To never forget

The sister who shared
What she had before
The broken she lived
And we helped to restore

The sister who knew
That love was home-grown
Organic and pure
And carved into stone