Poem for Vicki Heisler. RIP.

It is in the last recesses of insanity,

That I gather up the tattered scraps of my soul.

Here, in the silence, I am empty;

When I start the music, I feel whole.

Longing and loss, there is no description.

Saying good-byes, it seems the words always fail.

The departure is not easy,

And in the lost trellises there is guilt and regret.

To hold a soulless hand is to realize what is gone;

To hear the eulogy spoken from the soul, in the aftermath,

Unscripted - that is what is more and most.

Words, it seems, do not fail the dead,

As the speaker rises from the ash and brings the fragments to truth.

For you have left and right, black and white, and the bits of gray that made the one gone.

The truth seekers should go to a funeral,

And pry open the minds of those who mourn.

You will see the delight they had with the once-living,

But also the regret, fears, and way they could never get along.

In the mind is a whole being,

And for the one gone is not for who they mourn.

Adorn the widow in her black,

And she will turn the room to white,

As dusty hands reach and grab,

Faith, and the faithlessness.

In the darkest reaches of insanity,

I scrape at the tattered remains of my soul.

All I can gather are words, plucked like flowers,

Divine in that they are all I know.

I will give you my memories of this woman,

As family is deeper scored than blood.

She wrote herself into my eternity,

And though frustrating, she was loved.

What sort of divine truth will I find,

When I too join the ranks of angels?

I turn to the last moments of infinity,

The endlessness that reaches ending,

Death is not the last stop here,

As you board the train.

Wave your white handkerchief,

And pray for love to remain.

More than the number I can count,

I am left reaching empty.

The numbers on my hands now, seven;

And though there are those who would not count cat and dog,

A full hand is still misery.

How much loss can one have in life?

My first taste of death was at six;

My mother knew death from the age of ten or so.

I will count the numbers, and mark the tombstone I cannot see,

The touch is distant and fading -

But life, a sweet soiree.

My knees buckle beneath me,

As misery holds me in its grasp,

Depression reaches through me,

And as I sleep, I hope not to wake.

Everything is ruins in the aftermath of loss -

Wholeness is impossible.

Until I scrape up the last of the words I have,

The unable explanation, the momentary glimpse of light,

As I sing with the music song and feel it,

As I twist myself in the blankets.

As these, the last dark recess of insanity,

Collects all the words to know -

And I, in speaking words,

Know the last recesses of my tattered soul.

I say my farewell with eloquence,

Greater than I’ve ever known.

In loss, I reach for beauty.

In loss, heat replaces cold.

Farewell.