When the light left you,
the gray face framed in sheets
became the mummy of Akhenaten
not the gentle father we knew
when you were filled with light.
That’s the whole of it,
that we are each our light
to shine on those we love
Until the light is gone.
Yours was somewhat of a soft-spoken secret,
a twinkle behind a veil,
a daylight space between dark nights,
where you kept the sacrifices made to keep us safe
until we were strong enough
to bear the burdens of life without you.
You stocked our larders with siblings to share your light,
Carefully tucked it in a plain paper bag
with everything you knew we would need
when the needing crept in,
the hand to pull us up from stormy seas,
the cave to hole up in
when the world was imploding.
You were never the stern pharaoh that sunken face now portrays
you led simply by your kind example,
holding aloft a brilliance that glowed crimson
so that even when our eyes were closed or caked with tears
we always knew you were there.
Now that ancestral light
no longer emanating from you
shines from the eyes of your children
and theirs
and theirs
who may never know you
but will still share your light.
And that is how you became immortal
tonight.
