Caliper

(for Brian)

"The cemetery expands its borders—
little milky crosses grow like teeth.
How kind time is, altering space
so nothing stays wrong; and light,
more new light, always arrives.”
[Spencer Reece, “At Thomas Merton’s Grave”]


What instrument do we use
to measure the capacity
of one’s character to
absorb loss?

The lies we live with
slide smoothly down the rule
only when the points
take & hold, without
slipping.

Then one day the beam breaks:
& every measurement is off.

------

I thought I'd always measure loss
on the little silver Mezurall
my father left in a drawer
(for me?)

It's in another drawer today,
(I kept it in a pocket for a while)
but I should have known:

Its length was never going to be enough.

-----

Your sister let each of us who were to carry you pick a pair of your socks from a plastic bag on the day we buried you. I chose Da Vinci’s calibrated man with his legs stretched into a pace that I'd never be able to keep.

-----

A life is lived on a hinge
that swings between eras
of unequal lengths & depths.

Sometimes it is a simple wind
that turns the gate between identities.

Then, again, storms destroy
what seemed so likely to stand,
so solid,so protected,
so easily measured.

When things finally settle again
& what’s left is gathered:
there is usually enough
to build the world again.

But once the rule is broken:
the measurements will
never again be exact.