He is imminent, they have told us, a softer way of saying

he is about to die, like the words passed away, passed

to a place that is far, not here, cannot or will not

say where. Passed, as if through a threshold, to a place

we cannot follow, unknown to us. He died. It has a thud

to it, a spade of soil, the two d’s standing at either side

like bookends, died, bracing the solitary i, the self & the e,

his initial. His signature, a perfect birdswoop of wings.

           And taking him by the hand, he flexes his fingers in his sleep,

as if strumming guitar strings, notes that resound

in the caves of Sacromonte, geraniums in clay pots.

A puzzle on the table, half completed, all that blue & green,

grass & sky, tiny naked bodies, towers of fleshy fruits, a carousel

of dancing animals, & from somewhere comes

the music of a guitar, notes played by an unseen hand.

The adagio echoes in that whitewashed cave as we watch him pass.