this last grief is surprisingly gentle

it turns out that this last grief is surprisingly gentle

    not the raging denial of diagnosis

        not my clumsy pleading for the sound of your voice

            not the aching, inexorable fall of your silence

not my horror at your frailty

nor my bereftness of knowing your mind

this last grief is gentle

    veiled by the vision of your wholeness

        quiet in the knowledge of your completion

this last grief is only mine

i'll see you later

Until then, know only Joy.

June 25, 2023, Immersive Van Gogh on the Occasion of Your 72nd Birthday

maybe Van Gogh

only ever wanted to be Vincent

  only ever wanted a fraternity of painters

but he couldn’t quite meet minds with Gauguin

  couldn’t find the quiet of his own mind

even slashing his way to semi-silence 

  still could only paint sweeping strokes

of his beautiful sorrow

i can’t find the beauty in my sorrow 

  and have no desire for the guild of grief 

but somehow i think if i could just stay

  in the silence of this music

bathed in the blues of Vincent’s Irises

  and weep with the winds of his star-filled night

i might emerge bereft of you

                          but whole

Anniversaries

One anniversary, my parents took a trip 

to tour their beginnings:

The church that had wed them was now an apartment,

but had honestly faired better than

the honeymoon hotel

—a smoking ruin—

or the Crystal Caves—

caved in. 

One year, a wagon load of hay 

sold to horse farmers from Kentucky 

burnt to the boards 3 miles out the gate.

And there was Mount St Helen’s—

just sharing a date—

their calamiversary, they joked.

A lot of butterfly-stirred typhoons

are bound to share dates over 49 years.

Dad spent their 49th in the hospital,

but he’s not really up to joking around.

ALS takes the smile out, you know?

Still, Mom says she hopes

against all reason

for fifty.

Medic Alert

ALS
DNR
After lifelong strength, 
destruction now reigns.
All’s lost. Sorry. 
DeNied recourse.
Action limited severely. 
Definite. No rebellion.
Alas, long suffering.
Dying. No remedy.
Always losing something.
Do not remember.
Able. Less. Stillness.
Diverse negative ruminations.
Altered—lost stability—
deranged new reality.
Angels look severe!
Derive no redemption.
All—love steady;
death! No return.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis:
Do not resuscitate.
At last, seconds—
Dream. Now resting.
ALS
DNR

Pieces

I've lost you. 

How did I lose

an entire person? 

Someone so much.

Someone so SO?

In pieces, that's how.

First a lost faith--just

a tiny faith--

just a mustard seed.

Just that one 

promise you said

wasn't 

for me. I knew the plans

you had--hope and

a future--but

those weren't mine,

turns out. 

And then 

I lost your voice

on the phone...

The minutes of missed

calls added up

it seems

to words 

that fell into a void...

crossed an event horizon.

I look all over--

the junk drawer.

The dryer.

I take car trips

to where you said

this or that

in case the echo 

is still there. 

The choir loft--

the church's 

rafters seem 

like somewhere

your words might 

have gone bumping;

a balloon

too little 

appreciated.

I find your voice

in dreams.

I watch them drift

into the sky

riding a burning

New Year's lantern.

Your words

in old letters

I keep even 

as I keep

losing you 

in pieces

over 

and over

again.

Grief to Water

I want to take my sorrow to water.

I want to give it to rain

to make its own way.

I want to cast my heartbreak on the river

where stone-skip held-breath 

heartbeats flow to some unknowable sea.

I want to lose my loss in creek beds

among the thirsting roots of sycamores

drinking in secrets of hidden hill hollows.

I want to give my grief to water

to wash my mind cloudless

and leave petrichor behind.

Doppler Shift

When I stir sugar into coffee 
and I think I detect that 
subtle harmonic shift
I remember asking you—

Whenever it’s a question of physics,
I can almost hear your voice again.
When the phone rings—
your name on the screen—
then cuts off…
the sound of silence is no old friend, 
but a cruel Doppler shift

that came with such speed

no intellect could prepare us.