You found yourself a place to stay, you held onto it carefully

That not a single drop of all its torments should be spilled

You took the things we threw away, and found them good and more than good –

The shadows on a weeping flower, the bleeding barefoot loneliness,

The fragrance of broken bread – you tried to give them back to us

And then you let them slip away. You turned your back on brilliance

Bade earth an agonized goodbye and empty-handed faced the dark

Like everyone who comes this way. There wasn’t any difference.

–

The place you left is much the same as ever it has been

Through pointless prehistoric days before you ever came

Except that all the little houses hold a memory

Of some celestial babyhood that lingers awkwardly

Except that all the little roads are damp with dusty tears

That sprang from the Eternal Heart and trickle through the years

Except that all the little hills are haunted every night

By tranquil apparitions of the sacred suicide

Except that when we look to find the visitation gone

All the little skies are tainted with the tragic prayers of God.

–

Is our heartache taken from us just because you sorrowed, too?

Has our road a happy ending since you’re traveling it, too?

Is our miserable surrender to the lines of finitude

Less terrifying now since you capitulated, too?

Has our pain become irrelevant because you suffered, too?

Was our lonely desperation amputated and removed

When you also looked on high to find a God you never knew?