Goodbye, Sarah Burke

the first snow on the first week
from this brand new year,
rivers and mountains turn bleak,
footprints loom then disappear.

In a room full of love and worries
beneath a white sheet
blue flows into you and hurries.
Sweet Sarah, who will you meet?

We wait in the hall,
watching the breaking news
listening to the mourning call,
as trees wail the crystal Blues.

TV replays all the moments
that you shone in each fray;
we recall your movements
that took our breath away.

God must be lonely.
So lonely, he calls upon you.
The white butterflies rush by.
are you waving your Goodbye?

Sarah, where are you going,
the lakes frozen in cold,
the mountains capped by snowing,
and valleys strangely withold?

The sky must be empty
without your leaps;
mountains must be gloomy
without your sweeps.

But God waves his long wand-
a halt in Symphony No. 9.
The Olympic flame leaps not that far.
Your life, a brave legacy, is like a star.

So many broken hearts,
so much fallen snow;
we stand under the grey sky,
watching you waving goodbye.

James Faulkner set music for my poem and sang it at the 2013 Bread and Honey Festival in Streetsville, Ontario