Death, Great Friend (V--VII)
Janine Canan
This loss goes on and on. You're never coming back, and no one can replace you. I think of your epic dreams, in which the history of the twentieth century unfolded. What was in the air was as concrete to you as to me-- intuitions exchanged without obstacle. You saw evil, were eager to fight for good. You hounded me when I strayed in loneliness.
Pretty, dark-eyed, your shining olive-rose skin blended with the landscapes of Galilee. Your warm voice sharpened when something was wrong; what you liked made you laugh like a baby. Happiness, righteousness, clarity you invented as you danced and drew. And then your ovaries, that made three glory eggs, revolted, generating meaningless cells, chaos, death. How this loss goes on and on. You're never coming back. And no one can replace you.
*
You're nothing but a crushed flower now, soft and frail--like the petaled velvety vulva you painted with my face looking out. Oh, those female faces we wore, looking on with horror. There's no hope for changing the world--giant organism chaotic, cruel, crushing in its cornucopious productions, moments of perfect inspiration followed by inevitable deflation.
Attachment brings pain, non-attachment the void, doing freely for others both joy and violent punishment. Now you see what the world is like, said Tolstoi. Non-world bathes psyche and nature like sunlight or silver mist in these portraits of life--ungraspable souls hinted on paper and canvas: our lone lives.
*
Children flown to Los Angeles, New York; husband remarried; pictures gone from the walls; the house sold--no sign left of you. Only your voice, my Soul, keeps calling. You're permanent now, Friend who'll always be near me. You haven't changed a bit. Oh Death, Great Friend, what huge arms You have, vast enveloping wings. You spread them and we fly, dark and shining blue into the sun.
