Third Elegy

To make meaning. To thresh it. To go all agricultural with it.

To sew meaning. To hem it. To haw it. To mend it when it tears.

To mean. To have that ambition. To cut construction paper, glue on it.

To mean, to adhere. As to be connected—nay stuck—together.

To mean as to gather. To harvest. To love the chaff as much as the wheat.

To be the contractor on such a project, a consultant.

That’s my CV, my claim to an ordinary life, investigative, odd.

One day meaning trips, falls, can’t be found at the canyon’s floor.

Meaning: you have failed me, leaving a brief presence like smoke.

It was you who fled the scene of the crime, not in a car

But in an invisible Jeep; we love what we can’t see,

Though in this case, we see what we were told--

Locked in that bathroom with you, dear Sina,

I held your hand, as I did my mother’s, chanting

Om mane pame hung as you, and she, died.

I couldn’t protect my mother from the blotching

That began at her feet, rawled toward her heart.

Sina, if I could hold your hand, perhaps I could save you

From the weapons of your death. I am only participant-

Witness to the crime, detective

Wondering where life went, out window or door,

Fleeing to the provinces, failing to tell

Why what happened happened. All redundancy

Intended, the the of shock, this this of grieving.

Do not enter that small room, my friend says,

But think of the large things, transcendent ones.

And of dogs, puppy plays on the lawn

For whom meaning is only a head game

Humans play to pass the time. We pass away,

We euphemize, we rationalize, we hurt,

We insist we can still talk to you.

The old messages were sometimes banal--

Let’s aspire again to the beautiful

Banality of being. Rain drop on roof,

Distant car, `io that loves the open space.

A little girl recognizes his call,

Pulls flowers from bushes, rests

In her father’s arms. Hold to that.

Hold to that. Hold it.