Gone: Excerpt from Heaven's Coast: A Memoir, by Mark Doty Wednesday, September 08, 2010 |
The afternoon is so quiet and deep, it seems almost to ring and chime, a cold, struck bell. There is an inaudible roaring, a rush, beneath the surface of things, beneath the surface of Wally, who is now almost no surface, as if I could see into him, into that great hurrying current, that energy, that forward motion which is life going on. I was never this close to anyone in my life. His living so deep, and absolute, that it pulls me close to that interior current, so far inside his life, and my own. I know I am going to be more afraid than I have ever been, but right now I am not afraid. I am face to face with the deepest movement in the world, the point of my love’s deepest reality, where he is most himself, even if that self empties out, into no one, swift river hurrying into the tumble of rivers, out of individuality, into the great rushing whirlwind of currents. God, moving on the face of the waters…. I know it’s time. I say to Wally, while the breath comes more shallowly, “All the love in the world goes with you”. Each breath he draws in goes a little less further into his body, so easily. He never struggles; there is no sense of difficulty, no sense of holding on… I say, “You go easy, babe. Go Free”. The world seemed in absolute suspension, nothing moving anywhere, everything centered. Go easy. But you go.
Labels: death, life, love, philosophy, quotes, thought, wisdom
