memorial

for my friend todd.
*************************

red thermos cups shelter our candles burning
under the roof of a lodge, even as rain drips down
from the black expanse above,
on the periphery of our shared sacred space,
a smell of warm vanilla mingles with sniffles
coming from the girl in a black quilted jacket

we stand united, in the form of a circle,
present, to remember you in all your greatness,
you who beat to a rhythm indiscernible to the keenest of ears
a whiteboard taped with photos of you, part of our circle,
showing you sometimes annoyed, but mostly impish
in grins strung out across your face, as if the joke is on us.
we assemble in part to make sense of the tragedy,
yes, no other word encapsulates what has befallen us,
and in the end, we congregate to say goodbye.

my jaw aches with a million tears bound within,
a pandora’s box that once opened, might be hard pressed,
to subside the fury and flurry of emotion that would be unleashed.
you made people at ease by meeting them where they were at,
everyone knew you so singularly and differently.
i recognize you in a chuckle bellowing out of the girl in fuzzy slippers
recounting a tale of painting the shadow of a chandelier on the wall-
did a shadow always follow you, or only recently did you see it,
crouching like a coward around the corner, looking ready to pounce
one moment set and sure,
the next mulling it over and dissipating like the last strands of fog.

i can see you, leaving your indelible marks in the mission
with a can of spray paint in one hand and a stencil carved with one word
G r a c e
leaving bits of yourself in a city that enjoyed your creative expression,
sprayed on surfaces already blessed with a mural, a tagline, part of a face-
your ability to bestow grace upon others, even as you neglected to share it
with yourself, grace and love and mercy, replaced by fear, anger, judgment, confusion?
culminating in a final knell.

i can’t surmise what your life looks like now,
whether you are crafting art and dispersing creativity in the divine realm
because i hear silence and what i see is a void.
it’s still this expansive, grandiose void,
where angels are not singing a silence remains,
but for the golden fields upon which a gentle breeze blows on.
yes, it blows on.