Rough Draft

World Without End

The last time we saw you we’d just bought a home,
you were en route to Georgia for training
When you arrived we embraced alone, at lunch we discussed death
why, I still try explaining
Now and ever shall be, friend
Amen, amen

We drove, the three of us, out to the house in Otley
it was dusk on March 23, 1999
We walked on water, your guitar wailing like the sorrow of Galilee
I can still see us in that car, on the highway in my mind
like it was in the beginning again
Amen, amen

You kept talking about your duties: reading rites to the dead
In the rearview now, I’m ashamed I couldn’t see
But we were driving too fast, the Minotaur in my head
and you ignoring the ragged figure moving from tree to tree
and the world without end
Amen, amen

We sat in the dark that last night
in the distance that still exists between the closest of souls
And the wine like blood, the bread like light
and the stereo’s cello mourning like a church bell’s toll
Now and ever shall be, friend
Amen, amen

As you drove off I stood in the street watching you
went back inside, downstairs amidst the silence I was hearing
I wept uncontrollably, as if I knew
even then you were disappearing
As it was in the beginning never again
Amen, amen

Sometimes in the night I hear you calling
I wake, walk to the window, put my hands against the glass
And I wait until I see the North Star falling
hurtling from the sky so fast
And I know this gravity will reverse, but when
World without end
Amen, amen

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