Tragedy (Patrick Angus III)

This queer man died of AIDS
My God, it’s strange when tragedy becomes cliché, but 
This queer man, so talented, died of AIDS

And though he was by all means gay, 
He was not very happy 
(You see how words change, 
And we with them, as we try to fit them 
Like lightbulbs into the sockets of our own selves
Lest we become bereft, and wordless)

He used paint, not poetry 
But while I’m on the topic of putting outside of us all our desire, through art, like fire
And like despair, burning the air
I’ll speak of prayer:

I do pray now and then, since prayer goes both ways, 
Both forward and back in time
And I pray for him

I hope and pray he had time to find
The ecstasy of all his longing, bright as day, 
Like chasing butterflies or 
Flying in the skies and not falling into our lovesick, human ways, 
As we grow tired of the trying

I hope he saw it take wings—his longing, 
The little bird inside him joining a great murmuration of starlings

While everything looked on and applauded:
The whisper, the breeze, 
And above all,
The hard bit of tree within us, that somehow never ends
That rises and spins
Like a bird on the wind

The part that hopes to God 
Death does not win