When the dragon murmurs, the night lasts long; persistent are the clouds surrounding the withered tree.
Every flame of the eonic fire is an ember of events; in the emptiness of the eonic void there is a pedestal of awareness.
There is no more beauty and ugliness to make flaws; beauty and ugliness both come from here.
– Hung-chih, Zen master and poet (1091-1157)
The funeral home was not big enough. The line wrapped around the corner, a few hundred deep. The rise of warm breath and cigarette smoke was everywhere.
Blue flashing lights signaled the end of the line and where the sheriffs were telling you to turn. After an hour or so of shuffling towards the front, we finally entered the warmth of the building.
When I got to the casket, the smell of flowers was overwhelming. Bright annuals and elegant perennials of every color mingled and flowed amongst the baskets. I gave two Tibetan prayer flags to his confused dad; he placed them with the flowers. Brandon was wearing the clothes he would’ve worn, not some outfit of tie and suit. There were some beads around his neck and an old brown baseball by his hand. I overheard his sister saying that she loved him more than anything.
I wasn’t best friends with the body before me, but I knew him well enough. He’d make me laugh at Buck’s in his end of shift tirades about the waitresses.
He’d clink beers with me in the Down Home and tell me something funny. He showed up to my martini/’70s party wearing these huge Elvis sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt, looking like he was from the bug-eyed division of Hawaii Five-O.
I couldn’t quit laughing at his outfit while we sat downstairs bitching about cats and women. It is hard for me to imagine that same person; those same eyes behind those glasses were the ones that just found a hopelessness so insurmountable that he would take his own life.
I guess it was done in such haste, that he didn’t have time to think about the mockingbirds it would kill, the dreams it would haunt and what scars it would leave.
Brandon, there must have been demons that clawed at your cape because you would have seen the confusion you offered, the hearts you bent, and the minds you’ve left looking for clues.
I wish you had seen the real miracles that we shrug off in this day and age because we are too preoccupied with trying to turn water into wine. If you thought you were alone, you weren’t and that was evident by the ones left to mourn. If you had only thought of that.
When people ask that ambiguous question “why” it must be understood that “why” is something that can neither be answered nor asked these days.
Why is a word that loses all meaning when the dragon murmurs, it grows insubstantial when the night is long. The clouds that surround the withered tree never even ask questions, unlike us. Of all the whys that must be suppressed and fought not to ask though, one that will never come to our minds, is why we will miss you.
In memory of Brandon “Butch” Roberts March 1, 1978-Nov. 24, 2001.

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