Today was the day

My father has passed away

Today was the day that he has

Ever just gone away.  Never to return

He could have gone to where all of us

Could hover forever in indifference

Imprisoned back into the bath

The bath of almighty wrath

He could have boarded the train of desperation

Where he was waved at from

And was told

“We are going to take you on

And we are going to endure all of this together”

I believe that he let it all go

I believe that he released all of it and everything

I believe that he placed it all down

That when today came, he was not asked to board the train

He was asked to step gently onto the boat

And just calmly drift away, without the automation of life

With only the gentle stream

With only the gentle waves upon the ocean

With only this gentle life

Slowly, calmly, drifting away

Into the vestibule of the light

I don’t know if there was an uprising

Or an arising

I do know that there was a place of peace

I do know that there was a disintegration of the body

And a release of the soul

I do know that there was a place of benediction

A place of the light shining

A place where there was a beacon

Summoning him back into the almighty arms, god’s child

I know that because I saw it

In the brightly lit sky

The early morning the day before he passed away

The sky was lit up with a full moon in the shape of a cross

Just after he and I chanted the prayer of St. Francis

In words or thoughts

“For it is in the giving that we receive

It is in the pardoning that we are pardoned

And it is in the dying to the Self

That we are born into eternal life…..”

And that is when he set it down, and released it

His body eased, his breath expanded,

His temperature dropped and his pulse slowed down

The terror from within all fell away

I sensed it, I felt it

I do know that it happened

I do know that he has gone away

With much less of a saddlebag than he had before

I do know that has has been delivered

Transitioned away from all of

The despotic wasteland of the night

I do know that he has sung

And felt all the glory of the transpiring

Of all of this non-conforming transmigration

And he has lost his place in this material world

I told him that before he passed away

I told him that neither of us

Ever felt like we belonged to

This material world

I told him that

I told him that was ever more of a reason

To let it all go, to let it all fall away

I told him that

And I saw the question in his mind

But then I just saw it all fall away

I told him that he was destined to be lifted up

And to drift away

And today he fully and completely left this world

Although I knew last night that he was mostly gone

I saw him slip away before he died

I saw the boat come and pick him up

And I saw him float away

This is the moment of love and grace

Love and peace and sweet release