Keeper of the Dead

He runs his fingers through the frost-covered sand and waits
for the moon to come down on the lake
noticing every wrinkle in the water
and how they tremor like the slow moving clouds.
His clothes are ragged and his shirt is torn.
The skin around his eyes is sallow and flaking.
And what does it matter that she was beautiful?
Her elegance, her shining hair means nothing.
And what does it matter
since she walked into the lake at let the waves take her?
Her dress bloomed up around her like an echo.
And hour after hour there is only this grayness
this starless sky, these shapeless paths of moonlight
stretching out like the blurred and faded images of her ghost.
He thinks he too will disappear like the colors, the light, and the stars.
He thinks soon he will be no longer.
He will no longer be cold,
when slowly it begins to happen.
Three lights blink on
one is red, one is yellow and one is a bird and the bird is singing;
its song, big and empty enough to hold two hands, two hearts, their movement
and thus for a moment his heart detaches and spills into the water
this steady stream of sadness
so cold, so bright white.
He closes his eyes and feels himself lifting of
the bird griping his shoulders
carrying him across the lake
more beautiful from above
reflecting the moon, the mountains, the light that spreads freely
up even further than he could have imagined
over the tops of the trees, the forests that expand across the land
and further up through the wind, the weather, and the clouds
to where the air is still, all black like an open field in the night
where the sound of the bird’s wings
beating the air travels in every direction for miles
can be heard in the heavens as the sound of ghosts, their voices
warm and pure and always constantly and forever spilling back toward them.
He feels first her breath on his checks
smells her skin and then sees her words:
soft and sorry and breaking open like black shining jewels all over his skin.
And the bird becomes what he could not have ever imagined
is not a bird at all
but is his grief that grows so large
inflates into the shape of silvery feathered wings
that fly crazily now
twisting and twirling and plummeting through the night
shivering in the darkness these laments of his heart:
“I forgive you.”
“I love you.”
“I miss you.”
He tugs at the bird’s dusky skinned ankles
claws at its soft black under feathers and yells: “I can’t take it. I can’t!”
He didn’t know how much he loved her.
He didn’t know grief has wings and wants to be something alive.
He didn’t know it could almost bring her back
in the night sky
where a man can fall in love again and again.
It could almost bring her back
in the wings beating and eyes glancing down at him like a dark companion
glancing down at him and saying:
“Death is a way of getting to know someone.”
***