Exceptional

Picture This Challenge - Prose Poem

The Orange Sky of His Goodbye

by amada

Remembering Anthony-- I see the orange color.  Bold, audacious, bright. The mesmeric mixture of red and yellow, passion and tenderness--I see my grandson, Anthony: it was his color. I see the day of his birth, a bright sunny Sunday twenty-seven years ago. Cool, kicking up a storm, as if he already knew his time on earth would be limited. Perfect fingers, perfect toes. I see each day the one hundred orange balloons that flew to the sky in the day of his entombment. I see the one that stayed behind--the balloon that became enlaced in the branches of a tree, ight in front of our eyes. Oh, that sweet chalice of vision. The blessed balloon stayed up there for a while, dancing with the wind, blending with the sky. The nurturing branches softy swaying,  as if in a lullaby. I see how, with miraculous gentleness, each one of the tree leaves opened softly, like rose petals in summer; in an easy twirl, Anthony flew into the sky. He already had run a decathlon and climbed mountains in life. I see this miracle as his goodbye. Bright, teasing, laughing...as he was in life. I  see the days with dark slashes on the road. Those are the days when I don't see a reason, or atonement, or light. Those are the days when I question and unravel before the Almighty God. I also see my long narrow road under the solace of the orange color.   Those days with a twist of brightness are the days when his sunny presence graces me.  = = = = = = = = = = =

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