The Monday Poetry Train: Never and Always

I wrote this a couple years ago for one of my students who was dying of cancer. Unfortunately, Jacqui slipped into a coma before getting to read it and died a few days later. I gave it to her parents.
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Never and Always

You could concentrate
on all the nevers,
like you’ll never get married,
have children,
get wrinkles,
go to Europe,
own a home.

You could think about
those things, those nevers
but they are sponges
soaking up time.

The vase of your life
is almost out of water
so while you’re still
blooming
think about always.

How you’ll always be young
in your parents’ eyes:
soft pussywillows
that last forever.

You’ll always be the person
who taught me courage;
I am humbled by your bravery.
I’d like to let my hair go gray
but worry about what
the kids would say,
then I think of you,
statuesque in your baldness.

You’ll always be the person
who pops into my mind
when I think of conscientious
students.
Even when you had to have
an operation, you got all
your assignments completed.
I compare you to another kid
in our class who didn’t
even have an excuse
for never doing his work.

Always is the moon
rising fat and yellow
month after month.

Always is you,
someone to count on
to rise to the occasion.

Some people in eighty years
don’t have as much effect
on others
as you have had on me.

Thank you for being always.