down through time

I can’t configure in my mind the time of day.  In some memories its dark, in other memories its day.  All in the same memory, the same moment in time.
Then there was the night before.  The phone that didn’t stop ringing.  We all sat there as it rang, slow to respond.  As I finally realized no one else would answer it, I got up and sure enough, it stopped ringing.
Then the morning after.  Again, the phone rang and it didn’t stop ringing.  Slow to answer, my mom sleeping next to me, said,
Is that the phone?
Hours later (so it seemed; light to dark), my mom slipped on clothes and hurried down the hall to answer the endless ring of the phone.
There are no words to explain what happened next.  Just,
“What did you do to Mike!  What did you do to him!”
And the next thing I knew, my brother was dead.
Not one of us questioned how he died until we were told how he died.

[My Mike Poem]
your life hangs over like a lamp
from the path i’ve drifted from
when other lights of color
led my heart undone;
and as i rode through ether
caught in strobes of scattered void
your watt improved in measure
and i could not avoid.
though i thought the world was dark
without your strength to light it,
you are the light that is the strength
with the power to ignite it.
if i made a promise
you would have to keep it too;
we’ll take your strength to lengths
unknown to me and you,
and light the way your life insists
and follow it to your transfer.
we’ll mark the exes, connect the wires
and there will be an answer.~