Vanished into sunlight:
That’s what happened to my dead.
Not that they dwell in eternal light
but that their presence has become diffuse with time.
No longer living companions
they people my memories
threading my thoughts like mycelium.
They support my existence
like sunlight, soil, wind, sky.
They are further away but more enduring.
Death is abrupt
but people vanish very slowly.
I’m indebted to Julian Hoffman for the first line of this poem, which comes from his essay “The Distance between Us,” in his wonderful book The Small Heart of Things: Being at Home in a Beckoning World.
