For Mary Helen

2/15/02

That Which Having Lived

I cannot trace the pathways of her feet

In those far lands where body is no more,

In morns that render sorrow obsolete

And meetings with the great who've gone before.

For in this world where only the gross is seen

The damask roses of her cheeks abloom

Are hid from outer sight behind a screen

In subtle forms the Beautiful assume.

Perhaps a calm detachment will descend

And fill the widening chasm in the breast

Or angel-choirs stirring music lend

To pain-fraught hearts by sorrows songs oppressed,

Perhaps, but surely do not believe it so,

The dead are no more dead than we when dreams

Are spent and love expired long ago

And songs are stilled in life's illusive gleams.

What need have the departed for our tears,

Already they have gone to rest and wait

Preparing through the slow eternal years

New bodies that shall live to venerate

The One for whom all living things exist.

For that which having lived can never die,

The Change shall come though all the world resist

God's descent in our humanity.