To a Friend as Graduation Nears 

Remember the silly things.
Not just the profound ones:
discovering yourself,
plotting a course
through the wild and uncharted
waters of your life.
 
Remember floundering on a makeshift raft
in the middle of a pond
and scaring the turtles.
Remember microwaving pine cones
just to watch them open up.
Remember staying up late
making knots and paper airplanes
because we had better things to do
than sleep.
 
As you leave the redwood forest
for the desert you call home,
I hope you take with you
records molded into bowls
and the smiles of raccoon skulls
and a fragment of my heart on a chain.

 
I'm sure we will be swept away now
on the wings of separate journeys,
and we will fly fast and far
into our own happy endings.
But I just had to tell you
before you hit the road:
my world's a bit stranger and brighter
because I knew you.