When Harley died, this beating thing
shattered into a thousand crystal shards
each as sharp and fragile as a fallen chandelier.
I knew not how they’d piece back together, ever.
And for a while, I didn’t care
if they ever
would.
Then he led me to Made and slowly,
on the shore, the thousand shards came together
like a sun-drenched mosaic on the blanket of the ocean.
The days lived with song and when nights closed in Made understood.
He held me, as the rhythm returned
and I wept in
silence.
Since Made died this beating thing is muffled,
a sunken, leaden mass, as heavy and dropped
as an anchor hooked on a rock on the dark seabed.
Yet the swell above continues to ebb and flow, endlessly.
And all over me, the waves wash through
the reality of this
grief.
I opened this beating thing to these good men
and god saw fit to take them, both, and now its settled
there below as I navigate the cold, warm, murky, clear waters.
How do I weep for one, and not the other.
How do I weep for both, and not one,
and how do I hear them
sing.
——————
(Postscript: Two days after Made’s heart stopped beating, his friends and family gathered to prepare his body for the cremation ceremony. I went to sit with him again, so that I could spend one last moment alone with him before we all washed his body. Balinese Hindu people believe I must absolutely not let my tears touch his body as it will disrupt his soul’s onward journey. But when I lent down to kiss his cold brow, a single tear fell softly from his eye.
I tell you this without a word of a lie.)