Bits and pieces..

Neckpiece; 7"+ chain; found objects;
Kathleen Faulkner

An old friend is on my mind a lot lately.  He has been gone at least a decade yet I still run into bits and pieces of  him here and there when I least expect it.

Yesterday evening, for example, a dear friend of his  (that we all thought was dead)  came walking down the dirt road where I live.

Earlier in the day I had toasted his memory with a friend in Bellingham.  That encounter, too, was serendipity.

I found these shards recently at the beach by his old house.  

It is the same every time I walk by:  I always remember and it always aches a bit but I would rather have an aching heart than an empty one.

  

Friends make us fuller.

When friends leave, their light stays behind.

It is like the blue sea

that supports the white breakers 

that come and go.

No matter how far I go

I long to return and be with friends.

It is never the same fire I left,

but beneath it are the ashes

of all our meetings that have gone before.

                     Robert Sund