The Economy of Loss

        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