DAVID J. GALAS PHD
Your Death & Mine
- by David Galas
Between your death and mine
will fall some long, rare days of sun,
cold rain, mornings, afternoons,
hard winds that scrape the face,
steel glint of the lake in March, perhaps,
sweet grass smells from warming mud,
deep aches of a missing friend,
and ever light embracing the dark
green earth in which lies yours or mine.
The Number of the Days
- by David Galas
Most days the sun is up after me,
the coffee fragrant and cooling,
her light introduces the day.
It's easy then to believe
in the alignment of
all the forces in the world
But what force can there be
that will keep you safe beside me?
And what should I believe?
What marvelous equation
will tell me the number of the days
we will see the sunrise together?
The Dead
- by David Galas
With each year, more like each decade, I suppose,
the cast of your dreams includes more of the dead.
The dead are different from us in many ways,
not hauntings or shadows at all, you know,
just different, and what they bring with them.
I mean as different as a stony glare is to a glance.
The dead can't be asked again in the light of morning
just what they meant by that look or word.
They're confusing and redolent, but just at night.
They draw out your sorrows, constrict your chest,
those fine, lilting laments ring full in darkness,
the swell of chords and the skirl of stretching notes.
You hope they will touch you, embrace you,
and tell you all things that friends should know.
Ask about the weather just after their deaths,
seek forgiveness for leaving too soon,
and promise that one night before long,
they'll fill the clouds, you know, and see you again.
It is not the length of life,
but depth of life
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Highest Tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude
Thornton Wilder