In Memory of a Dear Friend

Never have I seen you
so still,
so silent

As if listening to something,
or recalling something,
you lie there in the freezing air
of the chill-box

I know
you’re now just a vessel of void,
a lightless lamp,
lifeless;
only a concoction of five elements
disintegrating by degrees

Your memories and impressions
drift away from you
after loitering here for a while.
And when you depart,
the light of the virtues of your past
may yet light your way ahead

Soon
you’ll burn in the electric pyre,
turn first into glowing embers,
then into white-hot ash

Before I take leave of you
I will touch a pinch of that ash to my forehead
and bow down before the vanished you

Later I’ll return
to the strident noises of the world
you once scorned.

As I sink and float
in the fleeting games of a world
that brushes aside death,
someday, perhaps,
your memories may stir my heart…
though I cannot be sure of it.

*