Loss Doesn’t Stop to Go Away

This has become the happiest
Bafflement, parallel sorrow’s
Bafflement at how anyone
Can swiftly restrict empathy,

The way events accumulate
Such that everything disappears,
But the events themselves exist,
Once happened, happened forever.

Once, there was a generation
Of siblings who inherited
The pioneer ranch property
Of their parents, siblings all raised

With the odors of old leather
And manure, pine planks, kerosene,
The wet soil and grasses in spring,
And every last thing that happened

To them, every morning someone
Climbed out of a bed and stood up,
Remains. It all happened, always
Will have happened as it happened—

And yet, the siblings are all gone,
No one lives on what was the ranch,
No living memory persists—
It all happened and was added

Forever, as it all happened,
And all of it forever gone,
The disappearances themselves
Having permanently happened.