In Memoriam
all the victims of the plague
The
speaker is a gay man dying of AIDS.
Now with accelerating force I feel
the world fall back and reel away from me:
Outside my window ceaselessly
the wind streams by, and every tree
spends itself terminally in leaves
that give themselves into the air
and twist away, fall down the street,
scud, stumble, scurry out of sight
under the culverts, into the night.
And all night long, beneath my dreams
the world’s great, rushing rivers drain
across the continents, down the wide plains,
into the dark, dissolving sea.
All Nature gives itself away
in perpetual farewell.
Now while my body’s failing cells
detach themselves and drift away,
you separate yourself from me.
My hands, that once could keep you near,
attempt to follow, tentatively,
and lose themselves in empty air.
My eyes still seek your face, no longer there;
my ears strain after you, your voice, your feet
retreating down hospital passageways.
My heart is gone;
my soul has ceased to be my own;
my thoughts no longer belong to me;
my peace is broken, my pride pulled down.
my peace is broken, my pride pulled down.
Great is the power of Nature’s law,
that every soul and body must obey;
the writ that runs through every thing,
the universal flaw;
the universal flaw;
that not even Love can stay.
