(Commemorating Michael, to whom death came on April 20, 2020)

20 April 2021

By Philip Kuepper

Then, the most I could hold
was dust.
His death
did that to me,
the particles of dust, his body,
suddenly, had become.

I hold them,
each particle the living
entity of him,
each particle the living
dissolution of his flesh
back into atoms.
Of these I hold.

As his body being
had been my anchor,
so now the dust
of his body being
my anchor in the sea of air,
anchor to the boat of my being,
suddenly, without compass.

He and I are, now,
beyond direction,
The compass needle points nowhere
but to infinity.
Our body-boats float in the ethereal.
And the star’s light that Michael has become
guides me to where he has gone.

(22 March 2021)