Rucy
                                            for Rucy Mandel, student and friend, 1932-2004

                                        She rose with the sun
                                        not exactly Maui
                                        but at least the dark winter
                                        lay beneath her.
                                        Poems to write, books to read,
                                        jazz cd's to hear
                                        all lay behind
                                        along with people she loved.
                                        Love, the wind that rose
                                        like the sun,
                                        that highest peak
                                        she had learned
                                        in these last months
                                        mattered more than goat cheese,
                                        politics, or her disbelief in the patriarchal God.
                                        "Love," she whispered
                                        in her lost voice,
                                        and          ascended.

                                                         © Pesha Joyce Gertler