12 may

the leaving of one
makes a heartbreak, a hole.
a space so them-shaped
but not empty;
it has electric borders,
charged with
all they made, and left.

it is not a black thing
not a hollowed trench,
waiting for a new inhabitant.
clear new curtains draw,
but they do not block us out
or shut them in.
they only preserve.

they are not now a thing to
be held in a hand,
and that opening and closing palm
leaves a stain, irremovable.
but the rest stays.
all the rest, it stays
in a living network of roots

some we see,
some invisible, but no
less real than the scar of a lightning bolt
or the crashing of a wave.
they live inside laughter belonging to
the ones we love,
the ones that we still can touch.

those roots cannot move on,
cannot go gently, or loudly,
into that good night.
they are too imbued with spirit
they connect us far too well.
the touch of a hand is sorely missed
but all that meaning lives alive forever.