Thursday, January 08, 2009

PICTURES OF THE AFTERLIFE ars moriendi

Over the hills the snow
has been falling for a long time.

And your body,
full of small
falling journeys
from which I cannot save you,
has begun its slender
and unholy unfolding.

Outside your room
the sane, ordinary chatter of starlings
is like that brief
volley of rain across the window after dark:
a small, comfortable sound
into which we wake, which stands against
all that wide remoteness we discover
in things that have been falling
for a long time. And yet you are so full
with the bird-like, invisible wisdom
of light and distance, and I am trying
so hard to think of less terrible
or beautiful things.
by Jude Nutter

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