as in the tatted walls of Canyon de Chelly
exhaling and, perhaps, inhaling
there must be some, like flutes
angling just so, that multiply the desert wind
the music Laotze said
might not seem perfect
uttering 10,000 things
just so you left one
with the void you created
vanishing slowly from the solid world
the many kind of vanishings
how I listened for your laughter
or anything particular
thus
suddenly hearing it aloud!
I remember how the painted wall of sand made stone like flesh
was seen as if sipping into those rows of mouths
just so the portions of my own breaths
draw into the apertures
for the hearts of notes —
countless types of silence, jellyfish in sound —
extend into both listener and singer
both singer and singer
both listener and listener
what holds the flutters of particles together
but the lives of uncountable spaces
everywhere flowing through
My beloved spouse died of an accidental self-overdose of methadone, prescribed for the palliation of fibromyalgia pain, possibly because of confusion induced by other normatively prescribed opioid drugs accompanying that prescription. In these times in which opioids are rightly under scrutiny, I hope that nevertheless we all will remember that for extreme pain, sometimes such drugs enable sufferers from such maladies as fibromyalgia and other forms of “invisible injury” to continue to live mobile and productive lives — and to demand wise and humane compromises that take this factor into consideration.
