In April of 2001 my brother David died of lung cancer. A man of great insight, sensitivity, and intelligence, he also possessed a terrific sense of humor and was always able to become a child again on Christmas mornings, on birthdays, the 4th of July, and on the roller coasters that he loved so much. I still believe he was a musical genius, not because he was my sibling, but because he had an extraordinarily inventive nature that created complex and brilliant new worlds of sound from the simple strings of his Humming Bird acoustic guitar. I still miss him terribly.
FAREWELL TO A BROTHER
Summer is over,
And I’m walking on the layers of it,
Like geological sediment
Pressed down hard by time.
The self I used to know
Lies deep under layers of memory,
Where wholeness lurks just out of sight,
To be studied (if discovered) and cataloged
For later use, then tested for truth
And redeemed without coupons, commas,
Or dead leaves that cluster ‘round its center.
One whom I love lies there too,
Buried among goodbyes of
Tears now hard as granite.
The earth spins on that stick
My third grade teacher called an invisible axis,
And gravity keeps us from being flung
Into outer space,
But inner space is what I mean...
With that moment of farewell,
Never to be removed,
But only built upon,
Irrevocably,
A petrified recollection
Of such density, that it remains embedded
Forever in the deepest parts,
Like some hopeless fossil
In that substratum
Of an early April morning,
Perhaps someday to be found
And polished into something else,
A stone for a ring
Or an agate for a cameo
Over someone’s heart.
JB
Summer is over,
And I’m walking on the layers of it,
Like geological sediment
Pressed down hard by time.
The self I used to know
Lies deep under layers of memory,
Where wholeness lurks just out of sight,
To be studied (if discovered) and cataloged
For later use, then tested for truth
And redeemed without coupons, commas,
Or dead leaves that cluster ‘round its center.
One whom I love lies there too,
Buried among goodbyes of
Tears now hard as granite.
The earth spins on that stick
My third grade teacher called an invisible axis,
And gravity keeps us from being flung
Into outer space,
But inner space is what I mean...
With that moment of farewell,
Never to be removed,
But only built upon,
Irrevocably,
A petrified recollection
Of such density, that it remains embedded
Forever in the deepest parts,
Like some hopeless fossil
In that substratum
Of an early April morning,
Perhaps someday to be found
And polished into something else,
A stone for a ring
Or an agate for a cameo
Over someone’s heart.
JB
