(A repost from 2019)

My favorite aunt is dying.. cancer, quiet and consuming as a flame..

Seven short weeks ago she was easily doing an hour of step aerobics, unaware of this intruder, this murderer within. Now she's lifted from bed like a rag doll.

She is my mom, well, a near twin—only smaller, funnier, serpent sly, more heavenly childish, sapient with sweet attractive grace and modest pride.

I am in total awe of her. We're kindred spirits, two sillies among the dull and endlessly serious.

I feel her, see her, day by day, slipping away like the hastening angel of heaven foretold.

This is too big for me, too awful and too close.

I am struck helpless, nothing moves, I sit, hardly feeling, and watch her sleep. Death's cruel process suddenly made visible.

I silently rage at the loss of it—my loudest vehemence pointed to this ravenous, lurking enemy pursuing her inwardly like a swarm of deadly hornets accidentally composed.

40 and still stunningly beautiful, she lies surrounded by computers, iPads, phones, faxes, intercoms, notepads, friends and care-givers. Her life reduced to escaping pain and making arrangements for her soon to be orphaned children 4 and 6.

Fentanyl and other pain blockers are her nourishment and seem to work better in the daylight as lawyers garner powers of attorney, bankers conjure trusts and estate planners build foundations to protect small children from a mothers loss.

As if they could replace a single hug
.
.
Songs for this (Gospel music):
Order My Steps by The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir
Angel by Sarah McLachlan
Jesus Loves Me by Whitney Houston

the sea gulls chanting,
the sun rising

shooting fields of fire
dancing across
the rise and fall of the sea.

she is standing by the shore.

the beautiful loser
floating lonely
like a storm cloud
ripped from the night sky.

she smiles the sorrow away
with a beauty so hidden and delicate,
distant eyes as grey as the sea at dawn.

she robs my head
sending my heart

floating
like a feather lifted
by a wayward wind.

she does her sky dance
on the sea shore
jumping
here and there
like sand fleas
across the beach
and wants for nothing more.

beautiful loser,

I see she is crazy.

and I want some of her madness.

her blessed madness.

Absence palpable as
An avocado stone-

Flesh delicious but
Roots are filling a
Far-off Jar-

White filaments lighting
Clear cool water

nobody tells me what to do with longing
unquantifiable as only the sand is
exulted light dives in my hair
my shoulders are amazed like a cactus flower
your blood self-absorbed rehearses abysmal cascades
tigers are still asleep in your dreams
will you chase the moon on my surface, will you, tell me,
leave your silence on a chair
what if love is this cypher for the mystery of time
what if the pulse is a form of photosynthesis
we have to stay away from any fire since
we would exhaust its thirst
a step into a surreal second that augments me
second after second  the one who loves
disturbes time in its mazing grace
the sky this gestational field
the space between each word a cosmos
a white truth will repeat itself
again and again bearing witness to
life hand in hand with death

Your grand memorial, all engraved,
Your history gilded, iniquity paved.
But each new eye who stops to read,
will know the less your wrongful deed.

"Erected here for future’s view,
By friends to make you shine anew."
The weight of grief, the tears once shed,
offset by a plaque that says you are dead.

Still, neath this stone, to make it clear,
Your marker says, “Yep, I was here.”
For all your fear of being erased,
In stone, your ego seems misplaced.