Annual
Useless now to tell you
About the year you missed:
A filmic year, an annal
Of sun and avalanche,
Death and gold, trophies
Of dung, eagle and crow—
Whatever. It is spring again,
Somehow. Not much changed
As we fell around the sun.
The kids are older. So am I.
Your post-its are still on the desk—
One is reminding you to call
The cardiologist. I couldn’t find
The password to the Schwab account—
Can you stick it in a dream?
The death and marriage papers
(Death bureaucracy is forever)
Are strewn about there too,
Usual as any letterhead.
The kids even still message
From your Apple account.
Is your afterlife as strange
As mine, and as banal? Here
Your nonexistence is a fact,
Now, as obvious as spring,
As cool and unremarked.
Yes, it still bludgeons me
Sometimes—who was never
Ambushed by the seasons?
Soon we will tip your dust
In the lake that wants us all,
Cold and crazy deep,
As you assume your final
Form in our bony minds:
A still point in the fall,
A buoy or anchor, a post
Or rail on which to roll,
A sense of total straightness,
A “residual graph of neurons,”
A bright ruffle of water,
A witty snap of dialogue,
A certain knowing smile,
A dogwood in your honor—
Without a plaque, and needing
None. It would all be nothing.
In a way it is still nothing,
Not that the spring could care.