Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

224 words 
are not enough 
to hold your complexity 
to describe your life 
to tell your story 

224 words 
discretely categorized 
these on education and profession 
those on the passions that fired your mind 
cannot suffice 

I could write novels 
stories and essays
odes and sonnets 
vignettes and epigrams 
and still not compass 
all you were 
to me 
to any of us 

224 words 
cannot scratch the surface 
of the sadness and pain 
that in the end 
consumed you but 

224 words
are all that fit 
into the columned inches 
to tell the world 
you are gone 

. . .