Putting Things in Context

This man was a hero
in the only way a man can be,
in that he was the best
he could be -
did the best he could do -

amidst a litany of loss
in the soul chambers of hearts.

In the crying spaces
there is lightning and flesh -

square your shoulders to the sky woman
as she twirls coloured strata of clouds,
draws lightning from your skin.

We travel these night rooms,
walk the shiny edges.
Your hands, as familiar as my own,
are lost to me now.

There's no way back
down that cinder road,
where the wind lifted
and left us,
straining at the bounty of life,
to break in, to count.

Like xylaria hypoxylon
around aspen-soft poplars,
tiny brown spring,
lepista nuda, from our feet.

Our footprints, like shakyamuni's,
the only testimony of our passage here,
at the mercy of tides.