"#RIP" - 7/26/15

it is totally irrational, isn't it?
to mourn someone about whom
you substantively knew very little
other than their celebrity, their parentage,
their supposed aspirations

and yet, it is insanity sometimes
that reminds us of our humanity
knowing unquestionably any one of us
could be the other, and how mysteriously
we have become exactly who we are

both my parents lost their parents
very young to illnesses well beyond
their young, inconsolable control
tragically, I never knew my grandparents
I mourn that loss every day and recognize

it is most of the reason why my family
is exactly the way it is; shivered, like many
other families whose parents harbor losses
of which they choose stalwartly to never speak
reluctant to share remaining memory's complexity

but nothing is more tragic
than what seems to us
like a futile, preventable loss of young life
presumptuously we distrust all circumstances
justifiably we are angry, point fingers, enraged

inevitably you were a light
to all who loved you, now extinguished
irrefutably you are missed by a family
so enormous perhaps you could not feel it
for all of this I'll say a yartzeit, complicit

In our culture's shock

"independent heart" - 7/4/15

when you ascend to love someone
in their physical absence
how do you tell them
once they're finally there?

do you whisper it
when they're just in the next room
so only you and the gods know
how you truly feel?

do you draw it in steam
an "x" on the mirror
just before they come into
the bathroom to brush their teeth?

do you bake rugelah for the first time
because you generally don't bake
or throw multicolor rose petals
all over the floor?

do you write a love song
or just hope that like a Quaker
you will look into their eyes, and they'll
blissfully agree with your version of the truth?

I like to think I am not alone in this
but I won't know for sure until
you come to rescue me
inevitably from silence

and wrap your arms around
my worried mind with no effort
you will know exactly what I need
and give me the greatest gift which is

your independent heart
when you ascend to love someone
in their physical absence
how do you tell them
once they're finally there?

do you whisper it
when they're just in the next room
so only you and the gods know
how you truly feel?

do you draw it in steam
an "x" on the mirror
just before they come into
the bathroom to brush their teeth?

do you bake rugelah for the first time
because you generally don't bake
or throw multicolor rose petals
all over the floor?

do you write a love song
or just hope that like a Quaker
you will look into their eyes, and they'll
blissfully agree with your version of the truth?

I like to think I am not alone in this
but I won't know for sure until
you come to rescue me
inevitably from silence

and wrap your arms around
my worried mind with no effort
you will know exactly what I need
and give me the greatest gift which is

your independent heart