John C. Hurley

The heart, that instrument of strange human-divine percussion,
decided a caesura was the fitting finale —
but his melody was so vibrant, we still hear it.

We say coronary event
because the plain truth—
that the body, startled by its own music,
simply fell silent—
is too near to mystery.

He was the kind of mind
that bent the air around it,
as if thought itself were an element—
bright, rare,
a thing we should have worn gloves to touch.

His charm, like the wind stumbling over branches,
made a kind of music of its own.

He loved his mother 
fiercely, liturgically, operatically;
each visit, a chorus of giving;
each errand, a psalm.

And now, the world—less brilliant,
less peculiar—
goes on rehearsing what he knew:
that love, when given,
outlasts the breath that bore it.

–Brian Mott