19/07/2025
💞
I’m making my son’s lunch when I find out you’ve died—cutting up carrot and cucumber while crying.
He tilts his tiny head, furrows his precious brow, and asks me, “Daddy, are you alright?”
And I remember what you said about truth:
“even when the truth
isn't hopeful
the telling of it is”
So, I tell him, no, I’m not alright—
a poetry angel has taken flight,
and daddy is very sad about it.
I know it sounds far-fetched but
I think he understands—
in the way trees understand soil.
He opens his arms wide as a bridge
and lunges for a hug.
And I remember what you said about heartbeats:
“If you were to press your heart close up against somebody else’s heart eventually your hearts will start beating at the same time.”
I feel a desperate instinct to retreat. Take my sorrow to the spare room, close the curtains, turn off the lights, hide from anyone who might dare to care about me. To lick at my collection of wounds, tired and alone.
But I remember what you said about relationships:
“…We gather each other up.
We say, the cup is half
yours and half mine.
We say alone is the last place you will ever be.”
I call my wife and tell her about a growing ache in my stomach; how unfair it is that a poet of such monumental importance now only exists in memories.
But she reminds me what you said about death:
“Dying is the opposite of leaving. I want to echo it through the corridor of your temples. I am more with you than I ever was before.”
My heart swells grateful as I realise you’re not gone—you’re still right here! In books on my shelf, videos in my feed, words etched in my skull, hope echoing through my bones. You’re still here—more than ever!
How lucky I am—how privileged we all are—to have glimpsed your soul through a miraculous lens, a pen dipped in cosmic ink, a voice so authentic it could have been wombed in stars, an immutable spirit set wild and free.
How inspiring. How wonderfully inspiring you are.
I flick through your books, too afraid to land on a single page, in case the words spontaneously combust upon reading; or sprout wings, escape their paper prison to be free—as words should be—with you in the afterwards.
But what I’m most afraid of is the words won’t be the same shape ever again. That the weight of loss presses them into crueler, cruder, angrier creatures; that the meaning will be tainted by mourning.
I feel a tension in the meat of my heart, not a rip or tear, but the start of a long pull—when it releases the flesh will be softer, slacker.
And I remember what you said about hearts:
“In the end, I want my heart to be covered in stretch marks.”
I ideate myself out of existence—
as I often do when down dark. The tricksy little imp, whispering from the back seat, implores me to spin the car off a cliff—to join you.
And I remember what you said about grief:
“That every falling leaf is a tiny kite
with a string too small to see, held
by the part of me in charge
of making beauty
out of grief.”
So I’m writing. I don’t know if it’s beautful yet. Not the way you are. Your consonants dance with your vowels, your sentences have curves and edges, your poetry can sail a ship or bend a spine, dress a wound or slice the moon, while mine seem edgeless by comparison.
And I remember what you said about creating:
“We have to create. It’s the only thing louder than destruction.”
So today, like millions of others whose hearts you squeezed, I’ll create, so that I’m not destroyed. And I’ll let my heart break…
Because I remember what you said about breaking hearts:
“Let your heart break so your spirit doesn’t.”
Andrea Gibson ❤️🩹
