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NOVEMBER 11TH, 1997, AFTER HIS PASSING
for John Anderson
After his passing, you look out at the blue sky and think, everything seems different, because it is, he has passed, at first you didn't know the world was different, that his passing had affected it, until like a young tree it tapped gently on your window glass to let you know, and at first you didn't hear it, the sun touched your skin, but you didn't feel that he was not beneath the same sun as you were anymore, the clouds gathered and moved across the sky as if to say, 'this is how he left us', but you didn't know anything as yet, subtle things had changed, without your knowing, he has passed on, days are never the same, those precious days that were a lifetime of moments, you can let them all fall through your fingers like shoreline sand, they have quietly shaped the coloured beach where his passing has relaxed and murmured, there is a tremor in the heart of the world, the day opens as wide as your shock and aches like your mouth in your grief, everywhere someone stops to say, 'you who were closest to his passing, I am sorry if this passing has caused you pain', before this the daylight was simply trying to say, 'he is gone now', but you didn't hear it speaking, he was so well-acquainted with light that naturally the day would speak of it, the day was his seventh sense in the world, towards the day's end is when his passing registers in the plants, then when you sound out your heart, when 'oohhh, that is sad, so incredibly intensely sad', his passing has squeezed out any moisture that might have been in the drying orange, 'oohhhh', the big bright sun that rose in the glass window rested heavily in your stomach, then the day has changed your life forever, the day of this passing has changed everything from his passing hereon, he once was and now he is gone, he has not even gone back to the place he came from, he didn't exist before coming from that place, so he wouldn't have known how to return there, now his existence has touched the day and changed it, his existence has changed it and his passing has changed it, so that everything will be affected from this day on, now that he doesn't exist it is changed by his non-existence, that small blackbird is different because of his passing, that dark emerald foliage that droops into your courtyard, as the sad light times its way through the stems and thistles, it has changed, the language of plants is his passing, the rain is his passing into the deep rivers, the earth is full and sodden after the big storm of loss, the broken fence in your backyard is as toppled as your caring heart, even though he had spent no time in it, it still seems empty of him, because you have known of his existence, the places where even he hasn't stood now feel empty, the tremendous blue day feels empty and stalls, the day has become a moment, even the wood ducks who navigate the night sky seem lost briefly, they carry emptiness beneath their beauty, they fly above all the light that is earthly and beneath all the light that is heavenly, the emptiness of him trails far away behind them on the first day of the world without him, I have listened and heard of his passing, the immense distances that he trails off into behind the flight of ducks is as distancing as all the white desert stars, whose slow light trails the moonlit Nullarbor, now you think of his presence and lean back suddenly, as if to laugh with him, then you bump into the wall, your elbow hits the brick and plaster and your grief is as solid as comfort, the first night that you came upon his passing was as affected as the day, and you think is there nothing that will not be affected now?, the world undergoes many changes so very quickly, if you cried for all of them you would never walk, there was a timid girl who lived at Rosebud by a windy beach, she never knew what direction she was going in, 'I don't know where anything is from here,' she said, 'I just follow a few roads on a map and then I arrive somewhere', it appeared that her life was left to chance, 'where is your place in relation to the sun?' I asked her, this confused the situation more, because if we thought of the sun, then all things would be passing by us, as we passed by them, it was all left to chance, the sun, his passing, and the deep blue planet, we have learnt so much in this orbit, in the few hours since he left us, from this moment on it is different. |
