BEYOND THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD

CHAPTER 43-CONGREGATE

STITCH’S POV
I am nothing;
I see all

Every man has a moment in his life when clarity invades and he sees his life for what it was, what it is, and where it’s going, and you had that moment in your life when you were seconds away from addressing the forty or so members of your family as they prepared to go upstairs that Friday morning. A few of the children had slept well the night before while those in your community that couldn’t shake the overwhelming anxiety of what you were about to do stayed up all night and tried to imagine anything and everything that could go wrong. But now the morning was upon you and there was no time left for that. The children were seated on the ground in front of you at a hidden tunnel entrance while the adults stood behind them sealing everyone in until you were ready to leave. You passed out sunglasses to each child, their hands waiting patiently in the air. You went over the rules for the fourth or fifth time knowing that it was overkill; they were as nervous as the rest of you.

But the reason for that wasn’t as straight forward as the casual onlooker would think when your clan emerged hand-in-hand onto a city sidewalk about ten minutes later. Going upstairs was nerve-wracking, yes. Having to interact with police officers was particularly aggravating considering that what happened to one of your own made all of you feel violated, but the issue upsetting your family was far more encompassing than that. This wasn’t how you buried a member of your family. You didn’t give them back to the society that didn’t want them in the first place. You had your own way of doing things.

*********************
FATHER DICK’S POV
Flesh is merely a lesson.
We learn it
& pass on.

Every man has a moment in his life when clarity invades and he sees his life for what it was, what it is, and where it’s going, and you had that moment in your life when you were seconds away from addressing the end of another man’s life. Your head cleared as you looked out over your congregation that morning--the bright, vibrant faces of those in the first half of the pews fading to the gray, tunnel-dwelling faces of those occupying the back. By the time Jon finally got there with Daniel in tow, it was like watching two people wade through a black and white photograph to find their seats. The only healthy face in the back was Zeek, who refused to come forward. As Jon led Daniel to his seat next to Sam, he glanced at you and that was when you realized that the real struggle going on in the sanctuary that morning was inside you and not your audience.

Nate began to play Bridge Over Troubled Water. Sarah began to sing.

You watched as if you were in a movie theater all by yourself as Jon’s arm draped around Dan’s shoulders, and then Sam’s around Harper’s, and then Brian’s around Justin’s, one after the other in synchronized sympathy, a gesture so practiced, it could’ve been part of a Rockettes routine. Sarah and Nate sat with everyone else when they were done, and again, the arm around the shoulders, and then everyone stood, and you led them in a prayer that you weren’t even listening to yourself say, and then everyone sat down again. Jon’s arm was the only one that didn’t return to its former position after the prayer was over. He looked at you again; you shifted your focus to Daniel; he looked down.

*********************
GABE ZIRROLLI’S POV
they have killed him, The Forgiver
The Avenger takes his place

Every man has a moment in his life when clarity invades and he sees his life for what it was, what it is, and where it’s going, and you had that moment in your life when you realized that your brother really thought you came to New York just to chaperone Justin’s clothing and to shadow Brian at a funeral, something you’d never had the pleasure of experiencing before, but he was wrong—as usual. You won’t ever tell him what a constipated penguin he looked like that day even though the suit you help him buy fit perfectly because he always looks like a constipated penguin in these situations for as much of a bruiser your big brother is, death is not his thing.

Zeek likes to take care of people and people’s things; he likes to compartmentalize people’s needs and then over-deliver on one very small but very crucial subset of those needs until he’s convinced himself that the recipient of his hyper-generosity is utterly dependent on him. Zeek is actually a tri-sexual; he fucks his ego relentlessly till it’s seconds from bursting. He can’t run a restaurant, but he’s the only guy in your three surrounding states who can repair discontinued commercial kitchen equipment to code and call the right inspector who'll pass it without replacing the entire panel, and he’ll have that information spray painted on the side of his van to boot. But put your big brother in a situation where he can’t find that one thing to fix or where that one thing that he thought he fixed breaks again for good, and everyone in the three surrounding states suddenly wants to move to Mexico to take cover.

You tried and tried and tried to get Zeek to come sit down with you inside the sanctuary, but he refused, insisting on standing right outside the doors, keeping them open, and shifting his eyes around constantly like trouble was coming. You asked him to do it for you so you wouldn’t have to sit by yourself, and he laughed, “Go sit with your boss, ‘Cakes. He’s alone. Oh wait, my bad, Justin’s there. I thought he was down on his knees.” You smacked him on the back of the headd, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“All I’m sayin’ is that I work security at Babylon, and I review all the tapes at Kinnetik and your restaurant, and there’s not one place that Kinney owns that those two don’t fuck. That’s all I’m sayin.’”

You were mortified, “In my office? He fucks Justin in my office?”

“It’s not your office when you’re not there, is it?”

You felt so filthy. “Where? Where in my office?”

“Well, let’s just say, you’re probably due for a new chair.”

“Oh my god.”

“Look, don’t freak out. Eggo was riding, so it was Kinney’s ass in the chair, and you kiss that all fuckin’ day, so you just killed two birds with one stone if you ask me.”

But you have to watch your brother because he’s the master of redirection, especially when something’s really bothering him, so you took a deep breath and recalibrated your emotions. “You know, you’re right; it’s just a chair. Just like those pews in there are just chairs, so why don’t you come sit down with me instead of standing out here like a pall bearer for an urn?”

He turned and glared at you, a disgust you hadn’t seen in a long time. “Fuck you.”

You wanted to get closer to him, but Zeek terrifies you when he’s this kind of angry so you stayed where you were, “See? You are in there. Alan was your friend, Zeek. I know; I remember the day he came into the restaurant. I was going to kick him to the curb, and you dropped everything you were doing and ran over to get him. You were ready to kick me to the curb. You cared about him. Will you just admit it and stop acting like a jack ass?”

“Get away from me.”

“Zeek, come on.”

He took a really deep breath which is something you’d rarely seen him do, “Look, I’m really, really pissed right now, and I’m not pissed at you, but if you don’t get the fuck away from me, that’s what it’s going to feel like so get the fuck away from me.”

You stepped back several steps and for some bizarre reason—maybe anger, frustration, exhaustion, the location--you started confessing to him; words jumped out of your mouth like they were drowning in saliva and had one last chance to save themselves, and you pointed at him like you were some spoiled teenage girl who just found out her boyfriend was fucking her sister, “You know, I want you to know that I used to watch you in our backyard every time some stray dog in the neighborhood died; I used to watch you sneak out and bury them right beyond the fence. You yelled at me when I fed them and gave them names, and you were taking care of them all along. You made me feel like shit for caring about them, Zeek. You called me a pussy—“

As usual, the more hysterical you got, the calmer Zeek became, “You fed them three times a day. Nobody feeds a fucking dog fucking three times a day.”

“But they were skin and bones,” you said.

He turned and looked at you, and that’s when you realized that you were sort of crying and that you wanted to stop because you didn’t want him to see but it was too late. He didn’t look angry anymore, just tired. “Gabe, they died because they were already sick. It didn’t matter how many times you fed them. I just didn’t want to tell you that they were all gonna die.”

You felt like a child again, like a blubbering idiot, but at least you were talking to your brother again and not a puffed up peacock. “Why didn’t you want to tell me?”

“Because you would’ve blamed yourself and it wasn’t your fault.”

“Okay, well this isn’t your fault, Zeek. You always told me Alan had more street smarts than you did. You don’t even live here anymore. There was nothing you could've done to prevent this, and you know it."

“Yeah,” he sighed, giving into a sadness you didn’t know if you’d even seen on him in person but rather just heard in his voice over the phone when he'd had too much to drink.

You stepped closer to him again and put your hand on his shoulder, just barely, “I don’t blame you for feeling like this. I know you care about Harper, and I know he made you feel needed.”

“Yeah, well not anymore, little brother. Not. Any. More.”

*********************
FATHER DICK’S POV
for life's not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis

You’d rewritten, revised, and rehashed your words for that morning a hundred times on paper and in your head before the moment you were supposed to deliver them and as you stood before a sea of eyes waiting for you to begin there was still new data filtering in and refining your message. The book in your hand, you opened it and flattened it against the podium to anchor yourself. It was a favorite in your personal library and surrendered with ease.

Alan.

You cleared your throat out of habit.

You thought about your trusty glass of water hidden in the shelf below. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Jon shift in his seat; he thought you were taking too long. You introduced yourself the way you always do when you’re preaching at another church as the people in front of you weren’t your parishioners…because that was really just sinking in. These weren’t the people who came to see you every week with pre-determined expectations. And so after your introduction, you continued…

“…And I want to welcome you…because I know each and every one of you struggled—in your own way—to get here today. I know that for some of you the hurdle was logistical, for others, more mental, spiritual…emotional. I know that some of you are sitting and staring at me and wondering if anyone will notice if you get up and leave. But I would like to ask you to stay…because we’re all grieving today, and I think we’ll all be better off if we stick together…”

*********************
DANNY CARTWRIGHT’S POV
Death also sees, though distantly,
And I must trust then as now
As prism—of another kind,
Through which one may not put one’s hands to touch.

How you got there you weren’t exactly sure, but there you were, sitting with Alan on piss-soaked train tracks that instead smelled like lavender for some reason, and then Alan showed you why, tapping you on the shoulder and telling you to look behind you, so you did. The graffiti that had covered the gritty wall of the tunnel was gone; it was covered top to bottom with Monet’s Water Lilies. “Where did that come from?” you asked him. “Me,” he said with a smile, and then he waved his hand in front of your face and there were water lilies again, just different ones, still Monet’s. “Can you tell the difference?” he asked you.

“Yeah, you’ve lost your mind.”

“No, I mean in the before and after.”

“Show me again,” you said just because you wanted to see him do it so he did it again, making them change three times instead of two.

“See it?” Alan asked again.

“They’re different paintings; I know. That’s all I see.”

Alan smiled at you, “No, it’s more than that. Monet developed cataracts late in his life, and it’s believed that it gave him the ability to detect ultraviolet light so his later depictions of water lilies are bluer than his earlier ones.” You gave him a blank stare, but it didn’t phase him a bit. He continued, “Want to know how I know that?”

“Sure.”

“I read it in a book that was always on your son’s coffee table.” And as he told you that, he turned around, and there he was—your son—standing on the other side of the tracks, two dimensional, painted but so real, holding a brown cardboard box, his arms hugging it hard. “He’s upset,” Alan said softly. You didn’t say anything; you were so close you could almost touch him. “Want to know how I know that?” he asked you again.

“How?” you asked quietly.

“His shoes aren’t polished.” Your eyes reluctantly left Daniel’s face and drove down his body to his feet, the toes of his shoes right on the edge of the platform. “He needs to move back,” Alan said, “They’re going to grab him.”

*********************
FATHER DICK’S POV
Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it's there and sitting down

You were barely listening to yourself as you spoke, and it hardly mattered because your audience was more restless than bulls penned up before a rodeo. You thought about switching gears and reciting the Star Spangled Banner just to see if anyone noticed…

*********************
DANNY CARTWRIGHT’S POV
i who have died am alive again today

Every man has a moment in his life when clarity invades and he sees his life for what it was, what it is, and where it’s going, and you had that moment in your life after it was over, when both you and Alan were covered in torn scraps of paper and pelted with broken pieces of chalk, you started to fret because you were losing sight of your son. Alan, on the other hand, was lying on the tracks laughing his ass off. “Did you see that? Did you see what he did?” Alan said, holding his side like it was starting to hurt. “Yeah, I saw it,” you said, panicking because Daniel was gone and you couldn’t make him come back. “But I don’t see what’s so funny about it.”

“He made a mess!” Alan exclaimed. “He made a fucking mess! And then he just left it; he just walked away! God, I’m so fucking proud of him.”

You re-evaluated the situation and all of the debris that Daniel had tossed on top of you. Suddenly it felt like a gift. You wanted to collect every piece, stuff it in your pockets. You started laughing, too. Alan sat up, crossed his legs and looked at you very seriously, “I think I cured him.” You smiled and patted him on the head, “You know what? I think you’re right.”

“If I wasn’t dead, I could get paid to do that, you know?”

“I think I have five dollars in my pocket.”

“Then you have to give it to me,” Alan said.

“I was just kidding,” you said, “I got nothing.”

*********************
FATHER DICK’S POV
Death’s long precision while
All things undo themselves

You figured you had one of three choices: keep droning on while they stared at you with empty appreciation, walk away and leave everyone sitting there, or do something to shake things up. The first option was far too disrespectful, especially to Alan, the second was intolerable, and that left the third…

*********************
BRIAN’S POV
Power is only pain,
Stranded, through discipline

Years after that day, you’d look back on the time you spent in that church and feel it, feel Justin with the same intensity as the night you met him. And while the night you met him went from nervous passion to chaos to a physical bond that you couldn’t shake, that day the process repeated itself between the two of you--only this time it went backwards.

Justin leaned on you from the moment you sat down, your arm was more than draped around his shoulders; he was at times treating that part of your body as an convenient cave. His hand rested on your leg, firmly, as if he was making it very clear that you’d better not get up, and he was swallowing a lot. You began to question yourself. Maybe you’d pushed him a little too hard. Or was your anxiety all about you because it was agonizing to be somewhere where you couldn’t comfort him the way you wanted to—naked in the shower, facing the wall with a very generous reach-around?

*********************
DANNY CARTWRIGHT’S POV
Being walkers with the dawn and morning

“I don’t understand why we can’t take a taxi,” you complained to Alan as you walked the city streets he obviously knew so well. “We’re dead,” Alan said, “And besides, you don’t have any money.” You hadn’t thought about that part. “Where are we going?” you asked. He stopped and looked at you as if he needed your permission to go any further, “I want to see if I can go back home. I want to show it to you.”

“I thought you said you lived underground?”

“I did.”

“I don’t know if we should do that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, what if we get stuck there? I mean, we don’t know how we got here.”

Alan smiled, “I know how we got here.”

“How?”

“Never mind.”

“Never mind?”

“It’s not important. Hasn’t being dead taught you anything?”

“It’s taught me to be patient,” you admitted. “And I thought I was patient when I was alive.”

“Well, then, please be patient,” Alan said. “That would be great right now.”

*********************
FATHER DICK’S POV
when god lets my body be
From each brave eye shall sprout a tree

“But today we’re all here in the light of day trying to make sense of this tragedy, and as I look out at all of you, I feel like I should say something all encompassing, like, ‘God never gives anyone more than they can handle,’ or some other laundered cliché, but a platitude like that has no place there, so I’m going to try something else. Most people that I talk to or who come to confessional are either afraid to live or afraid to die. I can count on one hand the number of people I’ve ever met who weren’t afraid of either, and Alan is one of them.”

*********************
ALAN HARPER’S POV
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade

The balcony of the church was hot and stuffy. You pretended to share your pretend popcorn with Danny; he wasn’t interested. Daniel had just taken a seat; Danny looked like he’d been run over by a car. “Danny, it’s okay; relax,” you told him, but he couldn’t. You kicked his leg, “You’re just like Daniel, you know that?”

“I feel really, really weird in here.”

“If you would just calm down, you could feel the positive feelings, too,” you advised him and then you pointed to a jar on the piano, “See that? That’s me.”

“That’s a nice urn.”

“Your son probably paid for it.”

Danny sat up in his chair, “That’s what’s so weird; that’s what I’m feeling. I feel like he would buy an urn for everybody in here.”

You laughed, “He would, and they’d all be monogrammed.”

*********************
FATHER DICK’S POV
i am a little church (far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature
i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

You’d gotten their attention.

“We’re all struggling with grief today, but I think we’re also wrestling with something else. I’d like to read something to you by one of my favorite poets, Allen Ginsburg.” And that’s when Jon’s stare became a death stare, and that’s when you decided to just keep going because there was more to this moment than just the beloved Dr. Jon Massey, and maybe he couldn’t see outside his own reality, but you could. So, fuck him, you thought, I’ll deal with him later. You turned your attention back to your congregation because, lo and behold, they were finally paying attention. And yet you went right on apologizing for what you were about to do…

“Now I realize that I’m a priest, and you’re probably expecting me to quote from scripture up here, but I know the key players sitting out in the congregation today, and I don’t think there’s one of you who walked in here with a bible today—.” You stopped because you heard Amelia, “Daddy, what’s a dibble?” And then Sam, “Shh.” There was an unanimous laugh in the sanctuary followed by Amelia’s solo encore, and out of the corner of your eye, you saw Sam handle her a bible from the back of the pew. It was too heavy for her and slid right to the floor. “’Cause you borgot I’m not big and strong, Daddy.” Harper’s head disappeared and reappeared, God’s word in her hand, and unfortunately, also her mouth, “Jesus, Sam--” and then she looked at you and stopped, the anger leaving her face and then her body as Sam took the book away from her. You smiled and turned and saw another woman, one of the women in Alan’s community holding up her bible like she just wanted you to see it, wanted you to know that at least one person in attendance knew this was supposed to be a church service. You smiled at her, and she put it down, never taking her eyes off your face. "So as I was saying, I’d like to read you something from the poet Allen Ginsburg. It’s a excerpt from his poem Song and nothing that I’ve ever read in any book makes me think of Alan more than this:” You read slowly not just for your audience but for Alan because he deserved each and every word.

“The weight of the world
is love….

“Under the burden
of solitude…

“Under the burden
of dissatisfaction…

“the weight,
the weight we carry
is love

……

“And I ask you if that’s not the real burden you feel today. If the love Alan had for each and every one of you, perhaps you really feel it now that he’s not here to wear it or package it or disguise it for you…because Alan was a positive force in the lives of every one of you sitting in front of me right now, and I’m wondering, and I guess praying that each of you leaves here today able to finally feel that…because he would be heart-broken if you couldn’t.”

You closed the book and put it right next to your secret glass of water. You looked back up at your audience and still they sat there stiff and fixated, like rows of popsicles terrified to melt. That was when you realized that despite your best efforts, you were weren’t the right sun to get it done.

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ZEEK ZIRROLLI’S POV
a man is a god in ruins

Every man has a moment in his life when clarity invades and he sees his life for what it was, what it is, and where it’s going, and you had that moment in your life when found the courage to do sit down next to your little brother at the end of a pew where he was sitting all by himself. He moved over, smiled and didn’t say a word.

*********************
DANNY CARTWRIGHT’S POV
Nothing so far but nearly
The long familiar pang
Of never having gone

Your eyes were drawn to your son as he sat in that pew, drawn to the pain he was radiating. It made it almost impossible to move your eyes anywhere else, so you just listened to Alan and stared at your well-dressed, darkly clad son, sitting up so straight. His posture was always impeccable. You could feel Alan’s hand on your shoulder, “Your son says that there’s two types of people: those that make an impact and those that absorb it.”

You laughed, “Is that right?”

“Yeah, what’s so funny?”

“That’s the analogy I used to explain to him why on earth I married his mother.”

“I thought he learned it in one of his books.”

“Nope, sorry. It’s nice to know I was good for something.”

“Danny, he never stops absorbing. Ever.”

“Is that why I feel like my heart is going through a meat grinder right now?”

*********************
FATHER DICK’S POV
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind

So you told them that you were finished, that you’d said everything you had to say, and you took off your cassock, folded it and put it on one of your secret shelves, and then you asked Nate to come up and play something, “While everyone else decides what they need out of this ceremony today because I don't think it's something they need from me,” and then you sat down next to Sarah. She smiled at you, patted your knee, and then whispered in your ear, “Richard, your fly is down.”

You thanked her and then thanked Jesus that Jon was sitting on the other side of your lectern because that meant there was no way he saw that. Nate started to play, Let It Be.

*********************
DANNY CARTWRIGHT’S POV
And words below a whisper which
If tended as the graves of live men should be
May bring their names and faces home

The meat grinder in your heart stopped right in mid-gear when the music began to play. The scene below you and Alan began to look like a wax museum, a living, breathing wax museum. You started to feel cold. “What the hell’s going on?” you asked Alan who looked as intrigued as you did concerned. He laced his fingers together and then turned them inside out, stretching his arms in front of him as he responded, “Looks to me like a nice old-fashioned game of musical chairs.”

*********************
BRIAN’S POV
I can wade grief,
Whole pools of it,--
I’m used to that,
But the least push of joy
Breaks up my feet

The nervous tension in the room rose to a certain height and then leveled off whereas the nervous tension emanating from Justin seemed unrelated to the room. You felt comfortable for some strange reason, felt like you’d been in this bizarre place before or in this state of being; you felt like you were walking around in one of your dreams, only you kept walking in a circle because you were completely unable to put any distance between yourself and Justin. You had a whirlpool of emotions brewing inside you, and the words Justin had spoken to you were tied up inside them: “'I want you to know that a part of me is dying; I mean, I don't know what else to call it. If I walk in that church...in that fucking funeral...with you, or for that matter, even without you,...that part of me...is not coming back out.'" And suddenly you felt a strange mix of peace and pride rising up inside you. It felt like a steel rod straightening your spine and your heart at the same time. Your immediate reaction was to try to find a way to steal it from yourself and give it to him because--

And then you felt the foolishness in that. And you could imagine Jon telling you that when a plane is crashing you put on your own oxygen mask first before helping someone else, so you fought the urge to short change your own progress for the sweet, sick high of martyrdom, and forced yourself to act like the man you wanted to be and not the man you were. And you could imagine Theodore telling you that if you ran your business the way you ran your relationship with Justin, you would’ve gone bankrupt in six months. And you could imagine trying to pitch your relationship with Justin as a product you wanted to advertise and you realized that there was no way in hell you’d sell anything you didn’t believe in.

And that was when you felt how little you valued yourself since the moment you realized that Justin wasn’t going to die. You could see how every time you gave to him, it was intentionally at your own expense, that you were punishing yourself over and over and over and in the end, all you’d done was crush him in the process. You gave away every bit of security he needed; you loved him so much he couldn’t ever come back and actually enjoy it because once you gave it to him, there was nothing to come back to.

You’d burdened him with everything he wanted…the weight of the world is love…

…because he had the audacity to want it...under the burden of solitude

…including a disingenuous marriage proposal…under the burden of dissatisfaction…

…praying that he’d finally just collapse under all that pressure...the weight, the weight we carry is love...so you could stop yourself.

But every man has a moment in his life when clarity invades and he sees his life for what it was, what it is, and where it’s going, and you had that moment in your life when you realized that Justin survived that horrible night so you could spend years trying to kill him just to prove to yourself that you didn’t deserve the lucky break you got when he didn’t die in the first place.

As if it was your lucky break to begin with.

Jon was sitting almost in front of you, and you wanted to jump up, flip open the top of his head, and scream into it, ‘I GOT IT, OKAY? I GOT IT. I’M A FUCKING COWARD!’ and then slam it shut. And then open it back up because you forgot something, ‘AND AN ASSHOLE. A SELF-ABSORBED, SELFISH SHITHEAD OF AN ASSHOLE!’ and then slam it shut again twice as hard. And then you took a Xanax out of your inner suit pocket and swallowed it dry.

Justin wasn’t going to be the only one leaving something behind today; there was something so ungodly dead inside you that you weren’t going to have anything to do with anymore. You were ready to leave this place a little lighter and determined that you weren’t going to do anything to prevent Justin from doing the same.

During your entire inner death match, you were holding Justin’s free hand, and you ran your finger over the back of it and whispered into his hair, “You’re going to be okay. I promise.” He sat up a little straighter, let go of your hand, and without turning his head, reached up and touched your face, his hand falling away moments later. You relaxed a little bit and kept your eyes focused on him, staring at the intersection of his neck and the collar of his crisp white shirt until he moved, until you felt a considerable amount of weight lifted off your body. When you looked up, you saw why.

He was leaning forward watching Harper as she walked with purpose to the front of the sanctuary.


Poetry and prose excerpts included Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Buddha in the Womb by Erica Jong, The Martyr by Herman Melville, since feeling is first... (VII) by e. e. cummings, Prisms by Laura Riding Jackson, Humanity I love you by e.e. cummings, i thank you God for most this amazing by e. e. cummings, All Things by Laura Riding Jackson, I Can Wade Grief by Emily Dickinson, when god lets my body be by e. e. Cummings, Walkers With the Sun and Morning by Langston Hughes, I Have A Rendezvous With Death by Alan Seeger, i am a little church by E. E. Cummings, Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson again, Nothing So Far by Laura Riding Jackson, Tell All The Truth But Tell It Slant by Emily Dickinson, Nothing So Far by Laura Riding Jackson again, and I Can Wade Grief by Emily Dickinson again.