---

Nikki was my light, my love, and my best friend. Our life together was filled with grand adventures and great blessings, beautiful scenes that will always shine in my memory. She was a loving wife and adoring mother, a devoted daughter and caring sister. She was a remarkable, beautiful, intelligent, independent woman. Warm and genuine with everyone she met, she touched the lives and hearts of so many with a luminous kindness and an unwavering infectious joy. She gave freely of her skills, expertise, and energy, without complaint, quarrel, or judgment. She had a razor-sharp mind and was a patient problem-solver who brought creativity and positivity to every challenge, big or small. She had a nurturing, radiant spirit and was unbelievably strong of heart. Nikki would never have claimed to be brave, but she was. Always eager to venture beyond her comfort zones, into sometimes perilous unknowns, always with joyful optimism, equanimity, and grace. She never sought center-stage but was always the brightest star. She was my beacon when I was lost, my comfort when I chanced to fall. I miss her beyond telling but I know that she will always be with me, and that I will always love her.

---

---

---

In Your River Blue Eyes 
To Nikki

Every night I sleep under stars
I must think of you and
Our first night together
Under the Oregon desert sky
Your radiant skin to mine
Warm caresses of sage wind and
In your river blue eyes
The entire beauty
Mystery and soul
Of the hidden moon
The boundless shining heavens
 

A Night Alone on Cedar Mesa
To Nikki
 
I hear your heart
in the windless moonlit night,
it beats through the stone
on which I sleep and
echoes
over red canyons
beyond blue mountains
through purple sky,
it drums me into easy dreams
then steadies me when
I awake at midnight
shivering in my solitude.
 
It is the source of my songs
to the whirling stars.
 
I hear your heart
in the moonlit desert night
and it beats with mine
in perfect time
forever.

---

Evening Comes in a Hurry
To Nikki

Evening comes in a hurry
Or not at all as
I ache for dawn
No dreams
No awakening
Black orchards of sleep
 
Instead of making copies of
Your death certificate
I would rather be riding a gentle horse
Through the waning yellow day
With you
With you
Smiling flowers
Breathing stars of eyes shining
Your grace in the ether
Your place in the other unknown
 
You left a hole no ocean
Or green mountains can fill
 
Yet you bring me rose stones and pink shells
Gathered between
Floods of tears
Sweet slices of orange
I am told I must be kind
To myself
As my grief devours the sun.

---