Simeon

For Simeon Wesley Seinen, my son (09/30/81 – 03/19/04)

I wonder

was a return address

encoded in the cells

dividing in the dark,

encrypted in his DNA

or in vibrations of soul

invisible, immortal,

inviolable like You?

Was there a safe arrival? Can this be tracked?

I wonder

is he weighty now

and real, glorious and strong

as I have so hoped every day all along as I miss him, our Sim

miss every moment of him

from the sweet creaky rocking

and symbiotic stilling of his hungry wailing

to those first-snowfall calls from Detroit

just a few months before he went silent

and I went from then on

tentatively

by believing, tentatively,

that nothing – no beauty, no goodness, no joy – could be lost forever,

that forever must hold it

and there it must be, please,

that he lives.

Some twenty years later, Sim’s silence still sweetens

the dark, early hours of my days, this ancient worn mother

whose heart fills with wonder at stars, wind and thunder

and all that I’ve seen of Your ways.

The words that You cried from the cross as You died,

reverberate louder than loss.

Finished! Christ cries it.

Death? Christ defies it.

Resurrection. New Creation's begun.

Nothing that’s ended is done.

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