It is Not Yet an Elegy
(I think I posted this on the original iteration of DU, but I'm of a mind to post it again. I wrote in 2010.)
It is not yet an elegy,
but I can feel the themes gather,
the muse calls, the baleful
light falls across the keys
of my instrument, and I type--
But it isn't yet an elegy.
You live, for one, and I can't,
for another, imagine you gone--
a reality that battles back the
themes of mortality,
skews the dying light
to cast about in a certain corner--
What did we call it?
Memory.
And that was mother of the thought
I had of you, being mortal,
and your mortality,
that it should not be rung as an elegy,
but tragedy,
tragedy--
that flesh is tragic,
that loss is tragic,
that we are all flawed like this, which is tragic,
and most tragic of all--
that something still within you stands
passionate, connected,
full of life--
and also full of dying.
Unthinkable. These two competing strains--
I dare not call it an elegy,
no. This dissonance haunts my
instrument, chastens me,
forbids me to wreathe you in
laurel or flowers, makes me honest--
but doesn't make me accept.
I have knowledge of what you are, alive.
I can not take knowledge of you finished,
yet.
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