For MM:
It was always there,
As if by design, as if a gift.
And plain for all to see.
The hunger, the desire,
The entire spectrum of life,
From joy to sorrow,
From pain to pleasure, and back again,
All bewilderingly incandescent in her eyes.
Wounded?
Yes, hopelessly so.
But with a soul that, despite any indignity,
Remained stubbornly luminous.
Radiant, sparkling,
Diamond-lit, effervescent.
Such a glorious woman,
But no ingénue,
Who somehow, it seemed,
Already felt and knew too much of life.
Bless her forever for the lingering glow she left behind…
And just by being here with us,
Even for a short time,
In a place where the powerful and selfish
So often rush to cheapen the most vulnerable
With their own petty, ugly desires,
She showed us there will always be space for grace,
Even where the squalid and perverse look to linger.
How humbling for us all then that
There was never any mystery about this?
For she already knew, better than most,
She was just the kind of beguiling beauty
That the world so often hungers to abase.
But still she kept stepping forward.
And how she loved and cried so often,
As only the bravest can and should,
Till, when the time came,
No doubt, weary and dispirited by then,
She could barely wait to run, headlong and trusting,
Into the open arms of eternity.
Extraordinary! I definitely love you!