I’m on the upswing after a week in the dumps
A couple of cups of coffee though I’m trying to cut back
At least it’s not the 70s
With their stimulants and depressives galore
So I’m not consumed with grief for your departure
Which was quite a while back anyway
But maybe a little manic with the memory
That you poked up through the leaf litter
Those several rainy autumns ago

I wouldn’t mind a little toke of weed just now
Though forbidden by doctors family members
And my own censorious superself
To feel again the timefree drift
The mild spice of paranoia
So suitable for long improvisational jams on summers’ eves
The musty taste of arid lands
The fumy touch that scrapes against the throat
Girls ungirded in granny dresses
And borrow again the wayward boon of silliness

But here in this puritan land
You must work to display your electedness
Which means the requirement to own
A load of consumer products
Calculated to allay and compound labor save time
And create entertainment value
But also you must succeed in productivity
Lest you merit the fatal note needs improvement
And all your family and friends stressed to death
By attainment expectation and the commandment
Of a happy face

That’s enough
I will not reach your presence on curls of rasta smoke
And no effort of mine will carry out your return
But still I see though you are gone
The place beneath that magnolia tree
That drops its heavy leaves the year around
That accumulate in dark ungainly strata wet and unappealing
Beneath the sound of wind chimes and silvery metronomes
Where your tender fingers small and bluey green
Drove themselves through the weight above
And in the shadow of the tree shined uncannily
I saw them for a day or two and took a photograph

You rose from darkness into fleeting light
From where life thrives in density undreamed of
The visible and the microscopic
The detritivores your sister molds and the plants
That carry life and food in virtuous cycle
Thou wast not born for death immortal organism
Though we might say that death was born for thee
I witnessed your efflorescence through two sunsets
And neither before nor since

And Whitman was too modest for he contains
Not multitudes but infinities
And thus one cannot claim a greater largeness
For as you brief flower sprang from the spores
And gave them back
So we together bore our birthing in the stars
We do not sleep much less forget you and I
But with the brilliant stain of memory fly
And add our sighing note
To the one imperishable great song