.
(for my brother Bob Kettelhack, Episcopal priest,
who died of AIDS 30 years ago, March 27, 1989)
.
.
An almost
pleasurable heaviness –
faint ache – neuralgia: soft – dissociated
from emotion: disparate, dispersed and widely
unrelated notions floating aimlessly
.
faint ache – neuralgia: soft – dissociated
from emotion: disparate, dispersed and widely
unrelated notions floating aimlessly
.
and far away –
as if in some near-empty
ocean various unbidden unrelated
species of sea creatures dimly
make each other’s shadows out
.
ocean various unbidden unrelated
species of sea creatures dimly
make each other’s shadows out
.
beyond the tug
and push of a translucent
gray salinity – just visibly enough
to raise a tiny doubt that they might not
be so intractably alone: and yet not
.
gray salinity – just visibly enough
to raise a tiny doubt that they might not
be so intractably alone: and yet not
.
terribly excited
at the thought: there’s
nothing fraught in this wide stillness –
nothing urgent or intense, untoward:
a lack of any sense of moving backward,
.
nothing fraught in this wide stillness –
nothing urgent or intense, untoward:
a lack of any sense of moving backward,
.
forward, up or
down: a kind of round
existence in which nothing needed much –
or anything at all. Episcopal priest –
my brother felt, and answered to, a call –
.
existence in which nothing needed much –
or anything at all. Episcopal priest –
my brother felt, and answered to, a call –
.
and just before
he met his fall, he conjured up
a Christ with whom the only possible
experience was ardor – wild untamed desire –
utter longing for immersion. In my brother’s
.
a Christ with whom the only possible
experience was ardor – wild untamed desire –
utter longing for immersion. In my brother’s
.
version, God was
something so in love with us
that we could not imagine the obsession –
could not know just how inordinately,
inextricably that flow caressed, contained our
.
that we could not imagine the obsession –
could not know just how inordinately,
inextricably that flow caressed, contained our
.
every little tic
and throe. My brother left
the living thirty years ago. Perhaps
my rambling foray now through this uncertain
not unpleasant shroud of cool translucent
.
the living thirty years ago. Perhaps
my rambling foray now through this uncertain
not unpleasant shroud of cool translucent
.
afternoon is
giving, through the flip side
of my brother’s passion, something
prescient. Through its absence,
we know presence.
of my brother’s passion, something
prescient. Through its absence,
we know presence.
Moving, beautiful poem.
ReplyDelete