Don't Speak of Grief
For David Emmaus Pakenham…
If all the tears I've cried could speak, they'd say:
If only you had just loved yourself more
As much as we all did
Even your shadows
The incredible wisdom you carried,
The playful clown,
The ways creativity flowed through you
Making other people’s ideas even more daring, more alive
All that complex beauty rolling through you so effortlessly
Love in action, not wasted on overused words
The subtleness of your sensitivity
The way you shape-shifted to meet others where they were or weren’t,
Not imposing or competing
Instead, you chose to draw people out…help them find comfort
Through quiet, watchful movements,
Or in wildness
How many of us will miss dancing with you, David?
And your courage to live to your own beat
Steadfast, loyal, yet often late or existing outside of time
Sometimes, even possessing the magical gift of slowing time altogether
To help some of us notice more
Live Truer
So slowww that it was sometimes hard to get things done,
But when you did, so humble, despite your extravagant capacity and intelligence
Or your justifiable rage at the bullshit of the world
But instead of burning it all down, you helped people fly
Made beauty out of wood
Cooked delicious food, served up with so much care
Balanced rocks on an unmarked hillside as precariously and quietly as you lived
If my tears could speak, they'd say:
If only there were more time
And you had just danced yourself through the liminal doorway
Into your fullest Becoming
To change the world
With the manifestation of your own important creative visions (too)
Without holding back
To sail the seas in the vessel of your dreams
And bring us all aboard that magical Curach* (*boat, Gaelic)
To know the stars
To honor the elements with you
It’s 3:13 am (again)
If only my tears for you could speak, they would ask:
How could you be gone?
Wherever you are,
Can you also hear the strange solitary bird outside my window?
Singing it’s wild, raucous, song every night
Since even before we knew for sure where you’d gone
(Though I knew, and you knew I knew…)
Everyyyy night, this feathered beast, living it up in his own personal party
Despite everything
Singinggggg, goading…
Silly humans, he croons
You don’t need an invitation to flagrantly create,
To manifest your dreams
You don’t need evidence that another is here,
Beyond windows and veils
This bird knows–
Pouring beauty into the night
Without permission
Without excuse
As lush and wild as you flung your movements into our lives, David
For that, many will keep thanking you
I know you will keep soaring, flitting
Waking us up
Just as you always did
If my tears could speak, they would say:
For 24 years, I have been waving love pom poms in your direction
Since the first time we met at the top of the trapeze and you told me:
There’s nothing to fear. You just have to jump,
…Your healer’s hand on my back to calm me
Since then,
I have intuitively felt your struggles and strangely known when you felt balanced
Months or years sometimes passed without words between us
But we were always there for each other,
Anchors in a stormy sea
Some friendships are like that, plunged much deeper than words and form.
Anam Cara–
Soul friend.
Wielder of quiet recognition,
Belonging,
Re-membering and Grace
You are and will be missed
Yet the bird outside keeps crooning, really hamming it up
Not caring if anyone can name him, or if he will be remembered just right
He sings anyhow
Maybe even mocking me because I have spoken so much of tears
Don’t speak of grief anymore
He incants
Love is not lost
And there’s plenty to celebrate
In fact, David told me just a few weeks ago that he especially hated funerals and memorials,
“Not enough celebrating.
Not enough remembering the preciousness of each moment while we can.”
Precious, indeed
And now he is free, finally knowing what unconditional love truly is, knowing the Big love, the complete love
And loving us too through tears, signs all around, and pesky feathered friends
Expressing unabashedly
And…
Soaring, soaring
If you would like to give to David Emmaus Pakenham’s memorial fund to help cover essential expenses
Every contribution helps!
“And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.” -Kahlil Gibran
"There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost."
-Martha Graham to Agnes De Mille
