**Day 4 of my Lenten poem-a-day challenge. Written in response to the death of Justice Scalia today**

It is striking to me
what a death
can hold

How the life
and larger
than life
of a man

once
held so crucially
apart
are fused
in the moment
of his passing

How in life
you are father
friend
human
in some rooms
you walk
through

But also
so much else
in other rooms
in other halls
a mouthpiece
of power
a sometime
arbiter
of brutality
in the guise
of justice.

In death
you are just
another child
gone
but also
everything you’ve
ever been.

And so the moment
beyond
you last moment
holds so much:

Sorrow at your loss
for some
and grief at the
remnants
of your legacy
for others.

Precious recognition
of life’s
inevitable
fragility
and bitter knowing
that sacred life too
sometimes
serves
our basest
brokenness.

We must hold
all of each other
I think,
when we go.
With grace,
yes, always grace,
but also truth:
that you were
everything you were
and not, for anyone’s comfort,
any less than
all of it.