He has already traced,
in leaden pencil,
your name—
undertaking the act of
rendering each character
ascribed to you—
defining the scale and
shadow in lines and serifs as
if he could ever capture
all you embody,
embodied—
your presence
already slipping
into pied memory—
the ephemeral pieces
of graying marble
small as beads of
a crumbling rosary.

From the periphery,
he chips into that marked
granite, grappling
with each letter,
trying to recast you—
dividing the whole
of your complexity
into measured parts—
and I shudder an
unbearable prayer
that you might
miraculously resist.

Struck first by the
futility of miracle,
I stand bereft, alone,
incapable of bracing
for the force of
the second blow—
wounding me,
and even more
deeply scarring
your memorial—
the mason’s chisel
fisted like a weapon—
the curve of the blade
quick as a scythe,
the blade unyielding—
omnipotent, exacting,
and mercilessly swift—

disregarding the fleeting
and eternal days that
formed those meager years
with you here, when you
stood as my brother—
the everyday act of calling out
your name across the fields,
only the haunt of an echo now—
the strike of the hammer
tolling, foretelling,
ringing out like a
desolate church bell—
the strains relentless
and enduring, each
pass deepening the
resounding chill
of your absence,

until, at last, with the carving
of the timber of the cross,
at the head of the marker,
his task is complete,
having fixed, unassailable,
what others will mistake as
your essence, in permanence,
and he lowers his shoulders,
releases his tools, and
brushes the dust hastily
from his hands—

leaving me
seizing the dread
of this passing over,
of this mournful revelation,
of this divined and
final transference—
as, in a mist of dissolution
faint as ash, the dust
reigns down upon the
last and only lasting
pronouncement of you—
the transcription of your name,
a silent invocation,
bestowed at birth,
bestowed in stone.