Sit With Him Who Has No Breath

Sit With Him Who Has No Breath

(“He also described to us the love that you have in the Spirit.” Colossians 1:8)

Sit with him who has no breath,
set the table for her who cannot taste;
when the air is heavier than sotted fog
let silence carry you,
let ritual be the rails you ride until
breathing comes naturally again.

There is no moment without effect,
there are no movements without the tree leaf twitching.
When time has subtracted more than you wished,
let memory guide you,
let summer laughter reside a moment longer until
the lyrics return.

I prayed the Our Father with you, three times,
maybe four.
I am ashamed to say I forgot some words of that
Ancient Prayer
I prayed
every Sunday till my teens. On the last time I
whispered it
I think I remembered every phrase, though
out of order and halting. I sang Hallelujah to
you, and Amazing Grace.
But mostly the ICU room where you lay was
filled with machinery whirring, rewording our silence
into every breath you took.
I tried to match my own with yours,
to be present on perhaps our last moments together.

Angels attend you sweet friend, and may you know
how much love clung to your boots and pain,
how our crocks of clay eventually decay,
and how our spirits awake, here or elsewhere,
to human touch as well as divine.