BY PETER COOLEY
Copyright is held by the author.
How can we love the dead
when they love us, only eternally?
How can we dare transfix them in a prayer
longing encircles, quickly circumscribes?
When they have ceased to wonder how we are,
occupied as they must be, hourlessly
in a heaven with their new imaginations?
Here, down-heaven in my little fractures,
I try to assemble some facsimile,
Love, of that longing. I try to sound a note —
timpani’s symphony. I finish a whole bar.
Even if the smallest of my measures reach you—!
And now you surround me, encircling, encircling,
then, taking back your resurrection, disappear.
Thank you, Peter. Makes me think of my Dad. 🙂