A day above ground is a good day
For Jen
We stood in front of your brother's grave
after a long day of intermittent rain
steeped to our ankles in mud and pale grass.
Probably stayed there for no more than five minutes
Time didn't suspend itself
Maybe it did for you when you heard about his accident
He'd been hit by a car - not killed
limbo for a time, hoping for recovery
Apparently that was not the Plan.
So it went. He was only a vegetable.
So they p u l l e d him a p a r t
from the tiny plastic hands
that were resuscitating him every second
while your family waited with salty eyes and rusted jaws
And I can't speak about what might have happened after that
It would be so fake
Fake like the flowers that still looked new
That were sitting by our partially submerged feet
So I offered a tear and a good thought
Tried to imagine death and afterlife,
but really only knowing life
Wondering what my death would one day
bring to my sisters - maybe nothing
Perhaps that was what broke me a little
And so I cried.
You loved your brother when you spoke of him
You went through those steps - denial, grief, eventual recovery
That damned process, which is undoubtedly just
a kludge to categorize our struggle with mortality and eternity
Apparently, it's true (contrived as it seems) -
Anodyne effects of time and events
multiplied by more time and events in two years since.
So you stood by me relaxed and comforting (a source for me)
maybe chilled, but only from the cold
wind of November
And when we left, you grabbed me suddenly
Pressed me close and
Kissed me hard, like it was the last one
you ever gave him.
Currently listening to:
Nothing But A Burning Light
by Bruce Cockburn