String Theory: Or, How you have forever changed our holidays

reflecting upon the suicide of the partner of my colleague

Help me weave a web of care

back onto this weaving

this safe soft landing

some will want to fall, or lean for a moment, or rest some time

the one in the book of life said

love the one whole soul you have been given

the only one you will ever have

the only one whose skin in this present

time enfolding your only you in full

now

the one that leads you through the universe

cosmic imagining becoming something other

in your dreams

this pin-point of light a galaxy

within a galaxy

contains all the light of you

so you do this thing

release your light now or

later

it flows on in matter and energy

some know

more than they will say

what they know

they cannot bear

they cut their strands

binding them to time

to you they say

strings are there

linking time to time

forget syn-chron-ic

time

is because all

happens not at once

you are timeless and I am bound to now

always and only now

yet

you bound your strand to some fixed point

you could not bear the manner

of tendential time

and its gravity

pulling inward all your light

becoming a mountain

the size of a pin-point containing

now and future and what went before

flowing into the same space

falling and sliding and sweeping you in

until

you were only able to climb

the stairs and fall

into the constraint of one visible strand

the one that began at the bitter end

and led our gaze

into the up or the beyond

the space without time we cannot see

and on the other end

there is no end

on this visible end

you left something

sweetness of a kiss

love imperfect and sincere

and all this uncertainty

your little ghosty-faced dog

you have gone under the flow of time

our tears our seine for our memories of you

into the oceanic depth and expanse

or the nothing of everything at once

meanwhile

I -- caught in time --

tap myself at the temple

and grasp at my heart

bend over at the middle of my grief

my knees finding hard cold stone

say, oh, why can’t I remember

must I be reminded like this:

capture this moment and it dies

in your hand.

Help me weave a web of care

back onto this weaving

this safe soft landing

some will want to fall, or lean for a moment, or rest some time.