(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.
"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.
