The History of Death

You died the day before
you were to leave
on the trip
you had been saving up
three years for

I was there
through coupon clippings
and browsing brochure after brochure
and wrapping up the pennies
in the bottomless jar

Finally you settled on a sunny spot
that wouldn’t fit your wardrobe
of black on black
or be too kind to your flaxen skin
so suited to cold clime

Yet you put your money down
because you said this trip
was for reinvention
and swore if there was enough left over
you were never ever coming back

(Going away you said
was to find again
that center you somehow lost
and a dream that lies
somewhere over an ocean

In a sunken chest
or a broken rock
once the foundation
of a temple where a fire
burned constantly)

But your body and time
were preparing you for another
journey
whose end none of us are sure
or if it even begins

Now I have
a still-folded itinerary
and an empty
photo-album waiting to be filled
with your vacation

And stories
about the mementos
you left behind
and the calico for me
to remember you by

And packed suitcases
which I guard
like hell’s three-headed dog
so the world will have to get through me
to get to you

(All I could do
was let you go
and wait
for your return
with pictures

I hoped could record your changes
faithfully
and strangely colored money
you’d forgotten was lodged
in some sock or other)

When you died I promised
to take that trip
in your place
hoping to see with your eyes
with your hands rebuild the ruins

Left by civilizations
on top of which
other peoples of other times
try to reconstruct like Broadway sets
semblances of the past

This is the history of death
which nothing precedes
but becomes a memory
buried in the molten core
of an undiscovered earth

Not particularly wanting
to be excavated
or captured
to be stored in some museum
and chipped at by cruel instruments

That wipe the face
of hard-earned dirt
deciphering symbols and myths
stand-ins for what can never reveal
the spirit of the truth

Now you can be certain
of what is in that heart
you sought to shake hands with
or kiss on the cheek
like an old friend

For so long
almost running into it
in the throng
waiting for the bus of understanding
knee-deep in blood and prayer

Answers
that can only be felt
not the solving of a mystery
but the vision like a love
that comes to you