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Now That You Are Infinite
In memory of my father
What elegy can truly package
a life?
Perhaps something about your
love for peanut brittle,
your parrot, your country
or the World Series of 1966?
Are there words that can
crystallize a romping spirit
on a short jaunt
in an imperfect world—
a living miracle,
often misunderstood,
unheard, sometimes,
but certainly
not unwept today?
Even trinkets of sun
tangled in the mist
are wondering where all
the light has gone.
You, who in
earth-shattering small
ways shaped me
from the moment
I showed up
kicking and screaming
like a frantic event
in your world,
are more than your memory,
so they'll be no pining
for yesterday here
and I'll try
something different and
not think of you
as you were,
but as you are . . .
Infinite . . .
that's right, another facet
of joy-chiseled Truth,
now knowing dust is only dust,
drama is only drama
(But what a show!)
for only a spin
across a deception
called Time,
in a vehicle for
the original beingness
that is you.
What elation to beam
through the cracks
of the shell,
knowing, finally, what
they meant by freedom,
while you wait for me on
the real side of forever
until we reach across
creation,
and all its theater
(all its howling and applause
and everything that doesn't matter),
until we meet where there
are no endings,
only love.
Patricia Joan Jones
Fairy-dust forcefields
Spiritual jargon is brought to its proper glory with the aid of your eloquence.
bananas are the perfect food
for prostitutes
It's always a thrill to read
It's always a thrill to read your kind and imaginative comments. As brilliant as they are uplifting. Thank you!
Knowing the event that
Knowing the event that inspired this poem, I would like to tread lightly---commenting with the utmost respect to your Father, and the utmost respect to this poem. When I was in school, John Milton's elegy, Lycidas, was considered the high point of elegy, but that poem seems stilted and artificial compared to yours. And this is a lively poem---it does not mourn, but rather, celebrates your Father's life here and his life with God in eternity; and so it offers comfort to all of us who have felt the temporary separation from loved ones and friends, a separation which the Maker of Stars will adjust in Love and Mercy for our eternal happiness. The center of your poem operates in two lines: the real side of forever and where there are / no endings. I applaud the line break in the latter phrase---giving the words "no endings" a single line emphasizes the meaning visually as well as verbally. (Your poems are full of such subtle strategies, and some enterprising graduate student is going to construct a disseration---and a long one---on that aspect of your Poetry alone.) And, of course, the final line seals the poem's spiritual grandeur by naming the nature and identity of God: Love, as the Apostle Saint John has revealed to us. In that last line of that single, most spiritual and most important word, is an allusion not only to Saint John's first letter, but also the thirteenth chapter of Saint Paul's first letter to the Corinthian Christians---the great hymn to Love that was revealed to Him by the Spirit. And following it, in the fifteenth chapter, is the Hymn of Resurrection; and I cite all of these to say that your Father now sees all of these aspects.
I should like to say one more thing about that line while you wait for me. I once heard a very fine sermon that reminded us that there is no time in Heaven---it is of infinite duration. Therefore, while we here, who are still caught in time, must wait, those who have preceded us there will not have long to wait. It will seem like only a matter of minutes, to them, who wait for us (to whom, illusively, it may seem like a long time). So those whom we wait---sometimes for whole lifetimes---to see, will receive us to themselves in what Saint Paul called the blink of an eye.
That is why I do not say words like, "I am sorry for your loss," very often. Because, as the devout believer, the actor Peter Cushing once pointed out, our loved ones are not lost (as if misplaced), they are merely temporarily absent from where we are until we shall be where they are.
You have honored your Father with this poem; and, honoring him, you have honored God---and that is the chief responsibility of a real Poet. And you are!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
J-9thxciv (J 9th 94)
I'm overjoyed and honored that
I'm overjoyed and honored that you completely comprehended my strategy and used the words "lively" and "celebrates" to describe my perspective. I was also elated by your evaluation of the last word, which I actually second-guessed momentarily, but your theological prowess assured me that it was the only word possible.
Thank you also for your profound and mood-altering contemplation on time, and I completely agree with you that erroneous platitudes are vapid and worthless to a grieving heart.
Always an honor. And again, thank you!!!