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