When you passed away, at first I did not mourn,
knowing you already knew—not death,
but God's tender care forever and wherever you might be.
Yet later whisperings came that though you were fine,
I was not, for I needed you
and could not live as well without you.
When whisperings grew to sugarcoated shouts
about how perfect you were
(immortal truth misunderstood, amplifying human heartache),
then I discerned the liar with its lie
(the anguished cry that man can be bereft of love)
and cast out mortality's eulogy of itself.
