In Memory of Late Friends

Beginning with the word instauration
I can barely remember what I’ve lost
nor, remembering, does the way clear
to restore to something what nothing is.
If stones from the quarry need shaping
here are tools, though they be only words.

There were ideal words like disciple
that imposed humility’s false faces
in paint that can't touch the only face;
discipline to reveal what was confined
in oils or ink, taking the bluff off
the inexhaustible, where what seems is.

There's no lack of need to ignore what’s
coming, its tangled simplicities. Rain
for instance. Snow fences for the year’s
end. Love, weather impervious to fire
or ice. Doing what the rest of me wants:
to follow its lead. Not mind, necessarily.

A house in ruin leaves little room
where there are no eyes in its windows,
no knobs to turn to open locked doors.
You are gone: the reason is not ample,
nor does it assuage. You bury the road
both ways. Now teach me nothing's lesson.

And I learn only words, yet they stanch
the flow, although nowhere do I fail
to keep crumbling into phases of change
flesh cannot defy. Because garlands
camouflage scars, what art would anneal
its wound if waiting were all there is?

(11 July 2011)

copyright 2011 by Floyce Alexander