The first night is the hardest.
The First Night
The worst thing about death must be
the first night.
—Juan Ramón Jiménez
Before I opened you, Jiménez,
it never occurred to me that day and night
would continue to circle each other in the ring of death,
but now you have me wondering
if there will also be a sun and a moon
and will the dead gather to watch them rise and set
then repair, each soul alone,
to some ghastly equivalent of a bed.
Or will the first night be the only night,
a darkness for which we have no other name?
How feeble our vocabulary in the face of death,
How impossible to write it down.
This is where language will stop,
the horse we have ridden all our lives
rearing up at the edge of a dizzying cliff.
The word that was in the beginning
and the word that was made flesh-
those and all the other words will cease.
Even now, reading you on this trellised porch,
how can I describe a sun that will shine after death?
But it is enough to frighten me
into paying more attention to the world’s day-moon,
to sunlight bright on water
or fragmented in a grove of trees,
and to look more closely here at these small leaves,
these sentinel thorns,
whose employment it is to guard the rose.
-Billy Collins
My friend Laurie died today.
I love her for too many reasons to number.
And as I made it through this first day without her, I finally came to realize that Laurie is fine on this first night. This poem isn’t about the person who died, is it? Tonight will be the loneliest for me and many others who loved Laurie. The worst thing about death must be the first night for those of us left behind looking at the significant, rending holes left by their departure. I have cried myself into a headache, I am bereft.
May Laurie’s life and death remind me to look more closely here at these small leaves, these sentinel thorns, whose employment it is to guard the rose. Laurie, I love you dearly. Thank you for inviting me in.
