On Greeting the Recently Departed
Penn Kemp
I am one of those who track the dead, though not
everyone who dies comes to visit. I’m surprised
by those who announce their presence either before
they die or for some days after. They troop by
one by one, whether or not I know them well.
Who can determine their rationale? Their joy at such
immediate release, the joy they share with anyone
who’s available on the spectrum. Medium rare,
medium wild, to slip so between the media and
explore rainbow traces. To trace the afterglow one
plane leaves in the arc of the next, a moiré of blurred
surface tangential to the touch. Be alert to the shimmer,
the glimmer, of possibility, the next, the one over there
where...and the mist lightens to reveal...or darkens at
the touch of the thumb that tries to nail experience in place,
the attempt to explicate the unpredictable, the strange
that is so sweetly not unusual, that is familiar. As close
as thought. As far, when the dead wander off. They drift,
mental travellers through these present lands, dissipating
wisps into vague aetheric veils, into the unknown beyond
dance’s defiance, exalting grief in lament and threnody.
