To dear friends on the loss of their infant son Derek to SIDS
The blade is spare of gesture:
A single slashing stroke
Enriches then impoverishes,
Permits but then revokes.
Great gift -- the love, the angel --
Joy fills the arms, but coy!
But taken back! Dear brevity
That was the little boy.
The hearts that opened to him --
So cut, they'll never close --
Yet seal the searing lesson
Left when Cupid goes:
Sweet crazy Christ the Buddha
Keeps us letting go:
You lose what all you have,
And it is ever so.
1990