Nonsensical Hauntings by a Former Mentor

wishing from the first to approach you with recognition
you have taught me without meaning and have raised me up
without talk or promise and again and again reappeared to me
unpronounceable and unchanging and unmistakable as a face

pushing yourself to occupy me to be more of me
who remains untouched in the silence through your passing
I try to hear you remembering that we are not separate
to find you who cannot be lost or elsewhere or incomplete

nature of the solitary loner interrupting the story
from the mind that maintained you and the hands that touched
the shadow of you in fine lines a long time ago
you for whom functions all existing good in this world
you to whom I have come with nothing but love
a purpose of my own as though it was something we shared
you that were pried away from our consultations and plans
taken by the lives that supposedly owed you nothing

let us be at peace with each other let peace be what is between us
and you who vanished now part of me has vanished as well
you who touched whatever I could touch at the beginning
and were how I touched and who remembered the sense of
when I thought I had forgotten it you in whom it waited
at the bottom of one unexplored unventured mountain
you who did as well as we could through our living hours
and helped undo the damage left behind that was me
finding my way back and who held the spirits and health
knew how to cheer me up in just the right way while taking in
my heartbeats so I can still feel them clearly long after they are gone
as though the movement of the crowd was still beside us
still chattering and your hand found mine in the shallows of waking
you who in a flicker of inattention signaled to me once only
that all was wrong my error telling me of the sudden blow
so that I looked down to see not you any longer but just the dark
calling after you who had already gone gone gone ahead
into the place I cannot know or reach or touch leaving
in your place only the fog of pain rising into the new day

yet as the pain recedes and the moment of it too
you remain with me even in the missing of you
whatever you had touched and had known and took with you
is with me now as you are when you are already there
a hidden part of me warning me reminding me
pointing to what I cannot see never letting me forget

you are my own book speaking to me going with me
all the way everywhere telling me what is still here

[Erin Wei]