It's Still Life

Liturgy for the Year of His Absence
(Cagnes-sur-Mer, Winter 1842 — Waiting Becomes a Way of Life)

I. The Question That Never Leaves

Where is Felreil?

Not a question of geography.
Not a question of distance.
A question of existence:
whether the world still holds him,
whether the shadows have released him,
whether he is still striding
in his English-blackened boots
through streets I cannot see.

I ask it of the sky.
I ask it of the vines.
I ask it of the small grey angels
whose grimaces have become familiar.

And the answer is always the same:

Wait.
Wait.
Wait.

II. The Man Who Moved Like Wind

He moved as if Boreas lived in his pockets:
north wind,
winter breath,
made flesh and coat tails.

Doors opened.
Streets and alleys yielded
to the stride of his long black boots.

He was not opposed by the shadows
of Provence;
they knew him.
He was one of their own.

And now the shadows have swallowed him
and will not give him back.

III. The Stars Made Miserable

Mon Dieu, Felreil,
you make the stars miserable.

You have left them watching.
You have left me
with nothing but their cold witness.

The stars, sharp as nails,
that I once called beautiful
now feel like witnesses
to a disappearance
they will not explain.

IV. The Love That Will Not Behave

But I love you.

I love you with what survives
a year of waiting.
With love that does not require
your presence to remain.
With love that has learned
to live in absence
as fire lives in ash.

And I love you
as much as I do not.

As much as I want to stop.
As much as I have cursed
the door that will not open.

I love you.
And I do not love you.
And both are true.

V. For the One Who Waits

Where is Felreil?
I do not know.

But I know where I am:
here,
still waiting,
still loving,
still asking
the question with no answer.

And that is enough.
That is everything.
That is the only prayer
I know how to speak.