Grappling with his departure

When I found out he was gone
what I thought about was his heart,
how he loved with a palpable intensity,
the way he smiled at us at the end
of a shattering night of silent fireworks.

I also thought of his love of oblivion,
the way his eyes would sink into the sky
and you could just see the depths,
the spaces, the spheres, the vast windy heights
that drenched his skin with ecstasy.

We all basked in the reflected radiance
of his presence, the bright forms of oblivion
that swirled around his body,
the gleaming trails of sweet stardust
that fed our lives and our hunger.

Now he's gone: there are so many questions
that I was too timid or vain to ask
and so many thoughts to keep at bay,
dark insects trying to swarm into the spaces
that he cleared out inside me.

It took some time for me to understand
but now I know that despite my fears
nothing can possibly undo or even damage
the hidden passageways he already built
with sturdy beams of light.

Now I see how he grabbed hold of
a lucent edge of my mind,
then bounded laughing into the sky,
still holding me fiercely, danced on stars,
stretched me to the quivering edge

Then he leaped off,
smiling at us at the end
of a shattering night of silent fireworks.