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Homage
Always there is more to know
more to understand.
The restless mind in constant motion
To cease its questing only in death, if then.
But the fleeting feeling of the instant moment
Rising unbidden through the breast
Is where we shall find our share of heaven
In the flux of days piled upon days stretching
Toward the uncertain future, small candles
Between two infinities where from
The first the dark awaits.
So many we have known are gone.
Leaving behind pictures in the mind.
Skeins of conversation, a look in the eye.
And the one who fills my soul wanders through my bones
Died himself to this earthly paradise and hell
A decade before my entrance on the stage
And I yearn toward the message he lived
That what matters in the end is courage
That it must be regained again and again
Blazing out from the solitary heart.
The magic mountains lifting us beyond ourselves.
Walking up the winding path to the shrine
The rain began to fall, washing over me
The wind slapping my naked face.
What greater homage could I bestow?
His ashes followed his body over the ocean
To this place he loved so deeply.
The minister did not arrive for the ceremony
Detained by town folk, a last petty revenge.
But the Pueblo Indians danced.
A storm ripped the glorious sky.
He would have laughed and approved.
It rained then as it rained the day I stood there.
Alone in silence. The ranch deserted.
What is death or sixty years to the living heart?
Jerry Bass
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