LOVE NEVER DIES
Lots of shit dies
Love doesn’t
Parts of me are
Already dead
But love isn’t…
My appendix
Dead and buried
My prostate and
A disc from my back
Dead and gone too
And parts of my brain
Cut out with the
Dime size foreign body
That got in there somehow
To cause so much trouble…
The twin towers died
And all those lost with them
Like a woman who was
Kind to me when
She didn’t have to be
Gone on one of those
Two planes, but
My love for her isn’t…
Five of my siblings and
Our old man and ma
Passed on now for awhile
But not the love we shared
When we were honest…
The mother
Of my oldest kids, my
First wife, gone, but the love
She and I shared never
Died, though maybe the
Like did…my first true
Love, too, the love of my
Life, gone now for almost
A decade, but my love for
Her, and hers for me,
Never died even thru
All of our husbands and
Wives and lovers over
The years when we
Were out of touch with
Each other, none
Of that stopped the
Love we both felt
And affirmed whenever
We spoke again like
The week before she
Passed still working
To help troubled kids
Find families, those
Kids still grateful for
The love she showed them
That’s still alive even if
She’s with the ancestors now…
Or other women I’ve lived
With who have passed on
Or lovers long gone
Like Joan B or Joe B
Her face so sweet and tough
Voice still admonishing me to
Just be myself and not
Worry what others think
His voice so quiet and
Stuttering in my ear as I
Write this, his image on
My bookshelves with his books
His art on my walls, I only wish
He’d lived long enough
To see it didn’t matter
How famous he did or
Didn’t become, his work
Living on among us
Who love it, exhibited
Often since he passed
Or Tony gone so recently
A young man who went from
Ripping doors off their
Hinges when he was
Upset with his wife and
Kids to the gentlest giant
Of many I’ve known
His ex-skinhead rages
Transformed as he turned
The pages of his life from
Anger to compassion
His punk Buddhist
Practice enabling him
To live with the rare
Brain disease that
Took his physical
Presence from us
But not the love we
Who knew him shared…
I think of him every day
As I do a lot who live
Now only in our hearts
…oh
Lots of shit dies, like
Almost everything that was
New when I was a boy
Including the people…
If you live long enough
So much passes it feels
Like another world…
But it’s the same one
Where love never dies…
—© 20013 Michael Lally (from my book SWING THEORY)
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