Epitaph

It's taken me this long to process the loss.  How could he be gone?  'O Captain, my Captain...'  Maybe he was from another planet, left here, marooned here by some cosmic storm.  He certainly operated in multidimensional currents.  No 'coming about' for the unwary listener or watcher.  But in spite of all the surprise and non sequitur, he was so tender, gentle in his unwillingness to hurt.  He saw tangents in every bland statement of reality.  He saw connections and possibilities and dared express them while holding on to us as we stood in wonder at what he could do with a simple question, an answer, or a shawl.

And in these discovered tangents he saw expressions of humanity at its silliest and at its best.  He found thin places, liminal, close to each of our questions about limitation and possibility.  And perhaps close to answers that do not come from rigid logic or the hard arithmetic of stuff, but only rise from where's and when's beyond, and precious in their rising.

Perhaps he was a castaway.  Perhaps he was tormented and alone.  Ahh but he will not soon be forgotten.  And what he leaves is more than the pain.  He leaves a whisper, a vision, and a gentle tear, along with the pure joy of now.  Gifts that will not die, even in the darkness.  The light shines and the darkness has not overcome it.

Go with God.