The Meaning of Memory

the meaning of memory:  

II                       

it was night

                        a wednesday night

                             nearing toward eight o’clock

                                       

when his life began to go out…

this, this         your 

life began

to come in

III.

the Bardo is:

forty nine days for the soul

to give in to the sound

of a mother keening her letting go

the hallway isle—

                        how, I think of Justin, under such staggering weight

                        your sudden letting go—

                        I want to believe this: and so I do:

                       

                                    you saw the glow that we were

                        and came to be among us.