TO PHILIP
by Daniel Berrigan

Dimidium animae meae; the half
of my soul, Augustine wrote.

Death keep you intact, dear brother.
Death's finger cross your lips -
not a word, a syllable, a sigh
escape.
  I mourn,
I accede, the absolute
dictum; chafed bones,
skull put to silence, the slow
diurnal surrender of flesh to earth.

'Don't be,' your law of being
elsewhere. Your 'No,' a not to be -
absolute, unbribeable by tears.

Faith, a huge boulder, rolls
athwart the cave named (alas for lack) -
twilight, memory.