He is Not Here. Dealing with Loss with Words with Music

"Seducer, healer, deity, or thief,

I will see you soon enough

In the shadow of the rainfall.

In the brief violet darkening a sunset

But until then I pray watch over him

As a mountain guards its covert ore

And the harsh falcon its flightless young." 

from Prayer by Dana Giola in The Gods of Winter,  Graywolf Press, 1991 Used by Permission

I have a backlog of books to read. I collect books like women collect shoes. I see a book I want to read and out of fear I'll forget about it, I buy it and put it on my shelf. Sometimes I buy from Barnes and Noble, but usually from abebooks.com.  This incredible resource is a broker of recycled books. After a few clicks and a few days, these books appear in my mailbox usually for less than five dollars including shipping. I eventually read all of them.  I have a somewhat effective system of segregating the new books so that they are not sucked into the black hole of my library. Something else I do. I sometimes read more than one book at a time. I am currently reading four books. I'm reading Empire of the Summer Moon, a history of the Comanches, More Than a  Rock, a collection of essays on photography, writing and life. I'm  reading the owner's manual for my Canon EOS Rebel T7i. Then this morning, as a break from the rigors and horrors of the American West, I pulled from the shelf above me The Gods of Winter, a book of poems by Dana Gioia. Sometimes though, by the time I start reading a particular book, I have forgotten why I bought it. I've forgotten its personal context.

When I opened The Gods of Winter, the very first poem, Prayer, exploded in my emotional system. "I know this poem. This is not new to me."  I remembered immediately that this poem was written after the death of his infant son. And I remembered how the death, and Gioia's words brought fresh grief to the surface of the death of my infant brother in 1963 when I was ten years old.  James Burt Helms was born, lived eight days and died. But I still didn't know quite yet why that poem was affecting me so deeply. Then as the dendrites continued to fire and as oxytocin flooded my system with deep emotion, my psyche reminded me, "This  is not just about those words, it's about the music.You're feeling the music as much as you are the words."   Music?  What music? I had no idea. Then the part of my brain that helps me to put one foot in front of the other said, "Google it."

It's the music of Morten Lauridsen, one of my favorite composers. The search not only brought back to me his incredibly beautiful music that expresses the pathos and pain of the poet, but brought back videos  of the author reciting his poem and the composer discussing his process. With all that material, with all the history and emotion  one might  think I would not have needed Google to prompt me.  But one might also  need to know that I need a GPS  to get me out of the subdivision that I just drove into. Don't judge. I'm no Einstein, but even he had to call the business office to get directions to his house. His brain stayed full of other things. 

All of this to say that my soul  remembered all of this before my conscious brain figured it out. When my conscious brain did catch  up, I experienced it all again. As I listened to Lauridsen's music my soul was filled and I was brought to tears. 

There was a man  who had poured his incredible pain and grief at the death of his baby boy into poetry. Then  another man had taken those words, reached out into the emptiness of musical space and brought those words to life.  And there was a book that I bought for $3.48 that I pulled down from above my head this morning that opened the floodgates of all this emotion.

In all the videos of Prayer, the singers are holding hands. Women and, men, women and women, men and men, they all are holding hands. Those singers felt it too. It all started when a man's firstborn son was born, lived for a very brief time and died. And they all felt that loss.

"As the mountain guards its covert ore

And the harsh falcon its flightless young."

We love our children. We love our brothers and our sisters. And when we lose them, at any age, we grieve. We feel their loss. We feel their absence. It's pervasive and painful. Several years ago after visiting the grave of my little brother on Easter Sunday morning, a  well-meaning aunt sensing my pain said, "He is not here. He is risen." My wife, who heard the exchange, a few minutes later said, "Yes, David. He is risen, but the part you are feeling now is 'he is not here',"

Grief is very real. But healing is real too. " Time doesn't heal everything, but it heals a lot.  And for me, beautiful words mixed with beautiful music is a powerful potion of love, grace and healing. "I will see you soon enough.  You won't remember me, but I'll remember you."