09/27/2025
This poem was shared by student (in dissertation) Holly Flammer, on the passing of Lionel Corbett. Thank you, Holly!
Guru Death:
Because sometimes it takes a panic attack
to break a curse—
to wring the breath from your chest
until sky and sea
become one vast mouth pulling you under.
Because sometimes the thing that saves you
is not ego death—
but the death of the one
who made your ego worth saving,
the one who steadied your wings in mid-air,
never clipping them,
never claiming the flight for himself.
In the old story, Icarus falls for loving the sun too much,
but no one speaks of Daedalus,
alone in the wind,
watching his son vanish into the glare.
No one tells you that grief can burn like wax
and drown like saltwater,
or that both ocean and sky
will mourn the same body.
Sometimes what breaks you open
is the death of the one
who made it safe to be yourself—
who taught you to fly
between the blaze and the deep.
And when they are gone,
you find yourself in the water,
sunburned and shivering,
a dove with one wing broken,
still trying to remember the shape of the sky.
Above you, a hawk circles—
sharp-eyed, patient—
a messenger from the world of air and fire,
reminding you that the currents are still there,
that flight is still possible,
that loss is not the end of ascent.
Because sometimes grief is the guru.
Sometimes the fall is the teaching.
Sometimes you only learn to swim
when the one who taught you to fly
is no longer there
to catch you.
Holly Flammer
