Karl with a K

KARL (w/a K)

When I cried at the first shock of learning of your death

My body shook and shook in tiny reverberations

As if you were energetically leaving

I could not hold you

But I could feel you

Stay connected to you as you passed

Where have you gone my sweet complicated brother?  

I miss you as though you were torn from me

Like an unripe fruit forcefully plucked from a tree

I wanted to keep you close  

But I felt the pull of your absence

As a missing part within me

The day after your death is grey wrapped in fog

The sounds of garbage trucks and laundry

Seem screechingly loud. 

All should be silent to sense your missed voice.

The cadence of your big steps

As I walked my dog

The smiles of people passing by seemed empty

As though they did not know

That the world is not the same with out you

I caught a glimpse of a kite caught in the tree

And I thought the kite knew better

That everything should stop

And honor you, your passing.

You would have liked to see the kite in flight though.

You would have problem solved a way to free it to the wind           

And let to follow the current.

I didn’t know where to put you.

I will put you in the wind

That is constantly moving and evoking the trees to sway

And the children to walk faster home

And the butterflies to twitter in the sky

And a hot farm worker to be freed by its cool touch

I will put you in the wind that all may know your passion

A passion that observed the world in great detail

And recalled both historical fact and fictional metaphor

That wanted to know the suffering of another

More than care for his own

And who wanted to know the triumphs of another

More than his own

To ask the child the details of selling candy

And the woman the mystery of giving birth

And the sister her interpretation of a child’s play

I will put you in the wind

So that all my know I am always with you

And so that I can find you to offer me solace as only you can

The Day After You Died

The grass whistles your song tss, tsss, tss  

The old pine branches move slowly as if rocking you

The oak leaves dance rapidly like feathers in a storm

As if chanting their protest

Grey in every direction

The light cast steel, stilling glow on the bay

And dwells on the iridescent purple blossoms

And lemon scented daisies that shiver in the wind

You are at once gone and everywhere

The white Queen Anne’s lace

That grew in parking lots near our childhood home

Stand tall above the grasses succumbed to the strong wind

Then steadying first in the slowing breeze

Then I am pushed from behind in a circle of chilling wind

To see the criss-crossing paths

Winding up and down the hillside

I step forward to stay in your presence

And feel the shiver on my fingertips

And the dried tears like twigs in my eyes

Most everything is blooming

But a few cursed pine branches are barren

And stony like fossils

I am reminded that you are now part spirit and dry earth

Everything suddenly stills except for a bumblebee

Collecting pollen and a bird’s faint song

And a dandelion bursting its seeds to the wind

As I will imagine you have

I will come and find you here in the passing spores,

Blossoms and barren branches

And still I will miss you always

But cherish the chance to be faintly in your presence.

Thistles

I used to see thistles and imagine them proof

Of our capacity to triumph over adversity

And now aware of your death they annoy me

For they grow in the very bumps

and crannies of the earth

where you met your death – a ditch in the road

How dare they tease me

With their arrogant triumph

When such triumph was out of reach

For  you?

And yet their thorny stem speaks of the

Give and take of survival

And the beauty of each life

No matter how small its blossom

The wild iris grow amidst the grasses too

Their blooms have burst in the hot spring sun

Above the sea

They will die soon as you have

Gone before the season’s turn

But they will have touched us with their beauty

As certainly as you have

As the blossoms in your park do

I will not curse the thistle its triumph

Nor the iris its short bloom

Nor be too concerned by the shadow cast by life

And death on the same path

For I myself cast a shadow

As does the bird above

And the grass blown by the wind

When the bird flies off in flight

Beyond my view

Its shadow leaves me just like you

I take comfort that in the days of your life

You too balanced the thorn in your side

And the potential blossoms to come

And come they will

In lemon yellow hugging the ground

And in raspberry with orange sherbet like hues

All with green stems buried in red earth

I will live sadden by missing you

But inspired by the complexity

And wonder of it all

Just like you