My brother's guitar

My brother’s guitar floats on
in its hardshell case,
a sea-turtle lumbering
through the oceans he sang.

His best friend’s wife
now holds it but I hear
she’s sick, the breast cancer back.
Well--guitars ride on.

Like books, no one ever
throws a guitar out.
They’re always passed on
in the belief, as in love,
in the chance for new songs.

My brother loved to play
that guitar, its sound against
his chest coming from the
greater third of his heart,
weaving a music which
my words will never quite reach,
rising from the dolphin womb
of first raptures.

I see him alone in his room
holding that guitar, playing
the chords which laddered
something like faith
but much older -- how can
one not believe in birth?

A knowledge of first things,
the way the Greek god
Hermes discovered the
miracle of song by
fashioning a turtle into a lyre.

My brother’s guitar travelled
with him room to room
through his life, beached
at last next standing up
next to his bedroom
door when he died.

I can still see him
holding that guitar in
a far fading room,
laboring to pour out
a soul’s depth of chords,

his hands in motion
over the frets like
moonlight over the garden
tonight, happy--

and I realize
he doesn’t need that
guitar any more
though I’d much rather
have him there playing it,

singing along, the guitar’s
tortoise shell case wide
open on the floor
with its gold velvet plush
like a welcome,
dancing on all of that water.