.

Earlier, amongst the lady slippers

slipping green out over the garden of sun-

glassed spiderwebs, slitting

across the history of it was

the ending that makes us men.

Things happened on the day he died:

We talked about how childhood ended

In the sun, before we knew

Death walks in and out

a guest too familiar, touches things,

gusts through, dirties the family portraits.

If he saw a ceiling fan or tiles,

If the water was running or he hit his head,

If he felt it forming words

Or caught a glimpse as it drew down

His eyelids like lampshades—

If he went to sleep silent,

If there was no music playing,

If in the other room, somebody paused the music

And took a phone call or played a video on the tv—

In the backyard, he is laughing at my smoke,

He is burning bushes to make a path there,

So we may sneak out before morning.

He is grazing in the grasslands,

Thinning out and growing tall,

He is telling us it’s ok to close our eyes now,

He is telling us of morning

In the scratches on his guitar –I don’t want

the pieces to come together—

Not the rainstorm that blew over the lake,

Nor the final lights closing in the forest,

Not the missed call in the morning when I still could have turned around,

Not the dead plant on the floor,

Not the cloud of dirt around the plant,

Not the open window blurred with rain water,

Not the screaming in the basement,

Not the warm hands on my chest,

Not the words, not the words

It is not fair.

Every new year he is smiling deeper,

And his warm eyes can hold you longer,

His big hands are pulling back someone who is drunk

And when we circle round, he is asking

to be let in, like an Elijah whose door has closed.

I do not know how 

there can be any children

anymore.

If it was not quick—

Or if it was not long enough to say his piece—

He’s gone down to the cold part where the ice fish

Slice around the water,

He’s got a fire going on the beach, but he sits out of the light,

He is singing so beautifully the wind begins again

Though it had promised not to mourn him.

I am listening now, just how you would,

Nodding, sitting, open-mouthed and ready to go,

Your hands not quite still on the guitar.

We took you back by morning light,

We gave you roofs and mountains.

Now, everything that moves is not quite you.

Not quite how it was.

Up on the rocks, the city still wraps the earth,

And new seekers sing, I’m sure,

But none like you—

Long hair framed in light,

Eager, so young,

Staring at me with the words

“we are going to change the world,”

barely off your tongue.

If you did not know all that you gave me--

I am sorry. I will leave the door open