Sunset of the Soul

For Michele W., RIP

The theme for the day is death.
No, not the man in a cloak with a red dagger
But the creeping seeping percolating venom in the air
That reaches into the lungs and infects the blood.
The theme for the day is death, and I'm only a poet
With a breaking voice and shaking hands.
Call it truth, call it life, call it reality,
But the poison gas is in the air
The Angel of Death seeking the firstborn daughter
To send to an early grave.
I could talk about probabilities and relativities
But the certainty of this puts an end to wonders and wanderings
And brings the conjecturing mind to a halt.
The theme for the day is death, and I can say with absolute certainty
That this is real.
Whereto, tortured soul? Whereto are you floating?
The pine needles were barely swept from your skin
The morning kisses were barely forgotten
When you floated away, unacknowledged,
Unheeded, unrecognized, unknown.
Your sunsets, your thunders, your aurora borealis
Your rain and your rainbow - where are they? Where have they fled?
I heard your thoughts in my head - your supernatural wisdom
That would give love to the world but knew not how to help yourself.
I hear you at nightfall. I hear you in the morning.
I hear you and can't disappear you from my thoughts.
The kisses in Brighton Beach
Making love in the forest
The time in Poughkeepsie you gave me a ride on your back
The words - thousands of words, soft and woven, finely calibrated and 
crafted,
The thousands of words that are now homeless for their speaker will
never be heard from again.
The theme for the day is death, and I know very little
Except that your soul is a wanderer
And as it travels the world, dark, haunting, exhalting,
The people receive a particular kind of inspiration
That starts with melancholy, persists through despair and ends in
grief.
Your soul is here, there, in all places, existing outside of time,
Traveling faster than earth in its orbit around the sun
Reaching into abysses and souls as dark as abysses
And giving the sense of your scintillating despair.
Your mind once shone so brightly, rich and profound,
A mind that had mirrors inside, multiple colored mirrors
That gave you the world in a rainbow of colors from which you wove
A tapestry of perspectives in every color
By which you navigated the phenomenal to get to the truth.
A heart that once fluttered so fast,
Once loving once wrathful, once sweet and once bitter,
Once giving light and once giving severity
Once full of love and once full of pain.
Eyes, eyes like the night, deep and enchanting,
Eyes that knew stars and knew earth - screaming with passion,
Searching with curiosity, shining with inspiration,
Scintillating with romance, slugging with anger,
Staring with determination, spiraling into thought.
Lips that made beautiful movements, sweet and enchanting,
Their red tulip curves pouting or pressing together
Disappearing within each other or curling upon each other
or giving a smile that greeted the beautiful world.
Your firm legs, your strong arms, your elegant frame
Your spiritual sensuality that lit the entire being with passion - 
all sublimated, all ash.
Where are you now? Where is your forwarding address?
We had so much to discuss, so much to find out, so much to understand.
The definition of the absolute, the purpose of imagination, the
mechanism of the brain, the secret of romance -
Now I must find out these riddles myself, for you are silent,
For you don't hear me,
For you don't know me,
For all that is left of you now
Is a soul that arises at dawn and sets in the evening.
Come greet, o barely living, the flaming sunset of the soul.