Saying goodbye
In Memoriam
Friend
Nothing about you was small.
The first time we met in
that gabble of strangers
you tore a Mike-sized hole
in their buzz of self-importance.
Your silence
was the biggest thing in the room.
In time I learned of the loss
you held too close for your own good.
Everything else you gave so freely
the source seemed boundless.
Even sick, breath and heart going,
you were bigger than life
like the hole you left
in mine.
Cousin
Nothing is ever lost. Who
remembers the step by step falling
through space, the narrowing of sound
to sense, the tick of time that
overwhelms the heart? Born
without words we know nothing
is lost but grows to something
older than memory,
deeper than grief.
Mother
You left life as you lived it, quietly, from the center.
Around that center, from the first, we circled,
taking what we needed before we knew enough
to ask. Because you knew, you gave so easily,
so quietly, and there was always enough.
There came a day you started asking, “What should I do?
I don’t know what to do.” We felt our center tremble.
What can the wanderers render to the hub, what
grave felicity fulfill? As always, we looked to you.
Your leaving was your answer, quietly, from the heart.
