Missing Man Formation…

(For Charles - January 7, 1926-June 26, 2009)

We climbed to heaven together,
Wafted on by the streams of prayer and incense.
Peace accentuated by a white shroud over gleaming wood.
Held together with ritual and memory, order and faith,
Our last togetherness
A voice, silenced on this plane, so we raised ours to follow.
Silence broken by incomplete melody, straining and tear choked
Our notes climbed, scaling a ladder shorter than the one he had traveled.
Yet, to honor his voice, his life, his soul, we sang on.
A vocal missing man formation
As the silence of the deep notes resounded,
Searching for completeness of chord
Grounding of ethereal echoes created the missing note
A shadow of answer, counterpoint, unheard, a mere sigh as light as
A gentle breeze, the slightest movement of breath over lips
A shimmer of rumble, bass echoed, sustained, trailed off and up
And we remembered our farewell as a coda.