Long Arms

At Charlotte Airport, waiting for my friend 
To go attend her father's funeral,
I meet a young man whose face shines
With anticipation above a huge bouquet of flowers

Which reach his eyes together with his smile.
He is waiting for his mother from Eritrea
Whom he hasn't seen in years while he has studied
In this tentative America.

I stay and take their photos- she descends
Wrapped in white, an apparition on the escalator,
And I recognize her by her love, which is 
Not in her but around her; it is so large

That I too feel wrapped in love's long arms
Which stretch like airplane routes around the globe,
Touch the silence of our dreams and reach
Just as impossibly down the long tunnel of memory

Into the silence of the grave and back.
I am ready now to go pay my respects.