Loss and Death

Orpheus and Eurydice

She left too soon.
He turned too soon.
Always too soon.
    Too soon farewell,
    Always farewell,
    Too soon and always.

If this last trip
    is always too soon,
Why does not Love’s farewell
    tarry its foolish wave,
    and hold faster to the
    slender line
Which is not attached
    to Hell?

Orpheus after Hell
    played his lyre alone.
    His art was perfect.
    He was torn apart
    and returned to Hell,
Where, perhaps, he found
    love again,
    and too soon waved
    farewell.

                          Saul Spiro, 11/1988

I Thought We Would Have More Time

“Oh dear. I thought we would
    have more time.”*
    The archetypal terminal
    thought.
    Everything that was mine
    coming to naught
    in another breath or two.
    The trout of my time
    rising reluctantly
    to the hook and line
    of eternity.
    My moment. Me.
    Salt to salt.
    Tear to sea.
What is Heaven
    but a dream which
    evaporates upon awakening
    to death?
    And what is death,
    but the stilling of a dream
    whose evanescence
    tantalized one for a lifetime?
A prayer for the daily morn.
    A reminder. A vow
    forsworn.
    “I thought we would
    have more time.”
    Every day a Sabbath.
    I and Thou.
    The spirit never resting,
    but in its moment, questing
    inexorably-----
    from salt to salt
    and tear to sea.

                          Saul Spiro, 06/1995

*from The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields