Daniel (april 2011)

in the bone-stretched
frightening dark
I held your hand again

the last time was years back
when a warm gaze
cool as freshfallen snow
told me everything you knew

that you were still that boy
standing with siblings
and that young man
above the construction site
and the new-minted grandfather, again

those were eyes, then,
filled up with seeing
brimming so much
that the memory of light
forced its way out
as tears in a church basement

still, that grip, those fingers
clasped as strong as they must
on some tool, or hand
those which lifted me up
when my thoughts
were small enough to carry
in your hand-me-down wallet
filled with secret memory

I only talk about you
like a code, a cipher
for you always spoke in silence
and peace
and me only memories of you
are given to the lens-flare
of eye-filling light

fitting, somehow, that it was
in the dark
where I saw you again
and whispered those words I never said
while holding your hand
against the fall of night
and the heartbreaking of the world

lids firmly shut,
I kept my head on your shoulder
knowing, perhaps, in the dark
that to make contact
to dip into those wells of years
would be to draw out the light
of decades of love
seen through tears of sorrow
and joy

and that was enough.