Oh Take Me With You into that Bodyless Light…

They say it’s your final illness’s final hour—
Oh take me with you into that bodyless light!
You said the Angel of Death touched your cheek,
brushed you with his wing, then rode the air
—that great hawk, poised on the mastered wind—
that soon, soon He will stoop to heave you high
from your outgrown, outworn nest, your failed flesh.

But then? Into the light?
                          Oh books and books
that sing the endless light! I have read them all—
and books and books mocking those songs of hope.
Ah! But if I could see!
                          See and know!
Oh take me with you, just to the first glow,
just to the first hint of the deep light
reflected upon the rich plumes of Death
like stars flaring awake on His vast wings—

Not to die! To know! Oh God, to know!
Only to glimpse that bodiless light—and then,
to return knowing—
                         knowing beyond dispute,
farther than faith,
                     brighter than chant and prayer.

They have wheeled you away. You are gone.
I am here, in the world,
this incomprehensibly laughing mourning world.
Ah, well—I will walk the same blind round,
a mule chained to a millstone, till that hawk
stoops to seize me awake to the opening sky.
Til then, may you master the wind with sun-bright wings,
ascend from beauty to beauty, from world to world.

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