In Memoriam PJG
by Kevin McGrath
Former President of Signet Associates
Here is no grief nor sorrow
On this rare earth where we wander
The driven years like small dust
Unclothed, unbearable, and pointless
Skimming through the universe.
Where life is fashioned out of water
There is no single fragrance now,
Aquamarine the sky and zenith
Are tinted only with a promise.
Light-hearted, gentle, mischievous
Optimistic and so kind,
For years you described to us
The meaning of human goodness.
The beauty of your lucid spirit
Moved throughout changeless days,
Until unfailing life appeared
To take you on and out of time.
If worldly passion is an impulse
To form in space and void,
What is it you conceived
Which no one else observed?
Now on the hilltops all is quiet
As someone holding up a mirror
Stands behind the sky and
Reveals to us your perfect silence:
Where the makers of creation
Elegant and wild appear
Offering to your devotion
Their mild state, saying:
‘This veil made of human tissue
Grey membrane of damp light,
Is drawn aside like a curtain
In moments of great passage.’
You departed during winter
Snow and ice dressed the ground,
Before forsythia and the croci
Reared into a vernal air.
Time for you is now regained
As clouds issue shreds of pink,
Bars of radiance that show
How souls are retrieved from dark:
Where death has no one rule
No region that excludes us,
We were revived always
By your being only generous:
Giving more than you received
In hours that circle and are passing,
That is how you found affection
When all had been removed.
You fell in love on earth with beauty
And what more could you say:
Yet you put aside admission
To surrender and pursue
A certain justice in the world.
Who made you so human then -
Music, friends, companions?
Your vision now as evening comes
Settles to terrain and hills:
Clothing grief in lightest dust
Our mourning is your renewal.