We are all walking each other home.
—Ram Dass
There was that moment before
I read the letter, when you
were still invincible, that moment
when just seeing your name
made me think of sitting at your table
drinking wine, eating fresh tomato soup,
and my heart rose up like a good little dog
and begged me to read the news.
And then there was the moment
when I read the news. And read it again.
And let my eyes unfocus on the words
as I felt their terrible weight
settle in my chest, on my cheeks.
How soon the mind leans toward the worst.
It is hard to reconcile the two moments
together, side by side as they were,
the one so exuberant, the other
so grim. I try to imagine them
holding hands as if to steady the other.
As if they need somehow to be close,
fear and hope. If you feel a hand
slip into yours and no one is there,
perhaps it is mine, reaching
toward you through a letter
I will always be writing, the letter
of how beautiful it is to be alive
in this world so we can
shoulder together what frightens us most.
How beautiful it is to be alive
so that even in our most lumbered days
we might meet each other, hands open,
and steady the other, walking home.