Requiem is the song we sing
No dirge, this...but
Beauty blown from the ashes
Psalm of loss and longing
'When will I see you again?'
jfig 2025
NC, FL, LA
A requiem is a song of remembrance, typically written long after the initial shock of loss is over. They are extraordinary pieces of music composed of all the love and longing one’s notes can recall. The compositions are brave, passionate, and determined—stories that dream to continue giving, distilled by heart and mind.
As the fires burned this winter in LA, I observed as through a telescope; lens trained on my daughter’s physical address, mapping the movements of her and her coworkers. Two things stood out to me in high relief: the way they functioned as a family, acknowledging their own loss as a business, while at the same time resolving to be a resource of help and hope in their community. And two, the reality that entire neighborhoods were dismantled, reduced to rubble. Yet in those spaces breathed the histories of families, neighbors, schools, the local corner shop. People lost not only their belongings and aspects of livelihood, but they lost their people, in broad encircling swaths. The same could be said of North Carolina and Florida midst the effects of Helene. People one saw everyday would no longer be present; for weeks, or months…or perhaps forever. This remembrance, of what once was and might never be again, is a requiem.
I have penned a simple verse. But the stories of those who lived it, will last forever. I pray they have the necessary time and space, and love’s fortitude to say the words. That what to some of us are pinpoints on a map: Loma Alta Elementary School and Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Penland School of Craft and Burnsville, NC; find both their own resilience and fortifying compassion of humanity surrounding them.
Requiem II
Saturday, I saw you at the park
pup wagging his tail in recognition, for
you are known to us.
Sunday, winding our way to worship
we saw your daffodils - the first this spring.
Your smile was just as bright.
Dad called the mechanic:
ten years
you have been fixing our car.
Suddenly, our car is no more
awash...
in ash and memories.
The church has a high water mark
musty smell
and zero hymnals.
There are new daffodils
planted willy nilly on newborn hillocks
next to tires and trestles, all askew.
Our smiles are some days plastered in weariness.
Thursday at the donation center; yours
was real.
I hope you and your dog
Mechanic Mike's grease rag, and my 3rd grade teacher's smile
are all planted somewhere in my future.
At night I dream: when will we see you again?
jfig 2025
Requiem III
My heart is lodged, somewhere...
like this rock, but
in my throat
...not knowing.
When will I see you again?
jfig 2025
Roasted Words 