Look At It This Way

Look at it this way:

Once you give the face a name,

Then you can’t leave it alone.

You add skin color and facial hair.

You give it calm and soothing eyes.

You introduce imaginary friends and stories

To fill in empty spaces.

You repeat what you've said until you believe.

And there, in the span of a few dozen words,

That glimmering face you swear you saw
Grows torso, arms, legs.

Now human born, it arises
From what had been inexplicable,

Aligned with circumstance and given a place
Among those residing in some fantastical gallery,

And further you drift, lost as before.

Let a different option supplant your myth making,
But let it be nothing more than suggestion:

In darkness a door opens.

Dancing geometry dazzles,

Shapes cut through dank and dark.

Walk through this door.
Ask nothing and spout no rules of order.

You departing will not be the you returning.

You will not find language

To capture what little you saw.

Write down nothing.

Try not to speak.

Be full in not knowing.

A few shimmering dreams will remain -

Breadcrumbs to bring you back.

Give yourself quiet to cherish the ineffable.

Repeat your first steps as you let your body fall back.

Nothing else.

Nothing more.

Words at the Time of Your Death

When you flew one last time,
you showed us how we are like feathers
shimmering in a greater span,
lifted by one another,
aloft by no other power.

We are as singular as that,
as light and as fragile -
opportunists on the updraft of sunrise,
gone when flight takes us past
where touch and a soft kiss can go.

Into that silence we have watched you go.

Forever be our bird in flight.
Linger for us among clouds.
Let us follow you into sky’s cobalt blue
even through the gray of our forsaken days.