00
A
miniscule
abyss, science
says, between the seen
-- where
what will be
already
is --
and thought
-- where what is
happening
now
has, in
fact,
already
occurred
*
We think its day
but in fact its night
*
We feel ebullient
but in fact
we’re
grieving
00
Revelations
said: “That fruit that
your soul longed for, has
gone from you
And all the things which
are rich and splendid
have gone from
you, and
you shall find them
no more
at
all.“
00
In like circumstances
other patients
also have found the
oxygen mask,
at times,
intolerable
*
Found the impulse
to pull it off
relentlessly
inviting
*
Found their attention
out the window,
to trees, to the river,
floating back to the chat of
those, there,
in the room
*
Found then they think of
something they
think they would still,
were the mask off,
be capable of
saying
*
Found at that point
the nurse must
tie their
hands
to the side of
the bed
00
At the moment my father’s heart stopped
a pulse of overwhelming hurt
broke across his face, as if he
had been stabbed, or
as if, the monitors
turned off, he learned
deep inside his drowse,
that he had been betrayed
00
That in solitude and darkness
we are apart from the light
is an illusion, that the light falling
on the earth has left the sun is
an illusion. What light touches is
touched by the sun, is of the sun.
We as well are of that silent
roaring in the darkness of
which is composed our
momentary consciousness.
The sun is a gap in absolute
night, the sun will be forgotten.
No longer imprisoned in a star,
its fire will drown itself in darkness
and be restored to what it was
like the flame of a candle on an altar
The sun in this way is like the eye
that will close on all the other stars
those lives devoured by the dark.
That is where your father has gone
into the gold that came to the clouds
in late afternoon above the river
a gold outline around a dark cloud
and the horizon behind it all
gathering pink into pale orange
as he completes his last lesson
for you, about how death happens,
on a bed in a hospital room
a large window behind the bed.
Then a cloud came for him and he left.
A
miniscule
abyss, science
says, between the seen
-- where
what will be
already
is --
and thought
-- where what is
happening
now
has, in
fact,
already
occurred
*
We think its day
but in fact its night
*
We feel ebullient
but in fact
we’re
grieving
00
Revelations
said: “That fruit that
your soul longed for, has
gone from you
And all the things which
are rich and splendid
have gone from
you, and
you shall find them
no more
at
all.“
00
In like circumstances
other patients
also have found the
oxygen mask,
at times,
intolerable
*
Found the impulse
to pull it off
relentlessly
inviting
*
Found their attention
out the window,
to trees, to the river,
floating back to the chat of
those, there,
in the room
*
Found then they think of
something they
think they would still,
were the mask off,
be capable of
saying
*
Found at that point
the nurse must
tie their
hands
to the side of
the bed
00
At the moment my father’s heart stopped
a pulse of overwhelming hurt
broke across his face, as if he
had been stabbed, or
as if, the monitors
turned off, he learned
deep inside his drowse,
that he had been betrayed
00
That in solitude and darkness
we are apart from the light
is an illusion, that the light falling
on the earth has left the sun is
an illusion. What light touches is
touched by the sun, is of the sun.
We as well are of that silent
roaring in the darkness of
which is composed our
momentary consciousness.
The sun is a gap in absolute
night, the sun will be forgotten.
No longer imprisoned in a star,
its fire will drown itself in darkness
and be restored to what it was
like the flame of a candle on an altar
The sun in this way is like the eye
that will close on all the other stars
those lives devoured by the dark.
That is where your father has gone
into the gold that came to the clouds
in late afternoon above the river
a gold outline around a dark cloud
and the horizon behind it all
gathering pink into pale orange
as he completes his last lesson
for you, about how death happens,
on a bed in a hospital room
a large window behind the bed.
Then a cloud came for him and he left.