Voice Recovery

missing a friend

Others will recall the day

you left us. They will say, too young,

so much wasted. A half-life

of toasts, in glasses unraised,

so many paths not walked.

I still cannot celebrate your death.

May 6. I will remember that date,

not the other. A surprise arrival,

your bike roaring into my yard, your

life’s intersection with mine,

more unannounced and inexplicable

than the suddenness with which

you left it. I prefer things without

finality. I imagine you quoting me

Neruda still on my loneliest nights,

I imagine that angels and demons

fight each other now for the right

to listen to you read.

I am a jealous mistress-

I will still not give them my way

of seeing you; nor yours of knowing me.

They cannot completely have your voice

as long as it still resides even partially

in the reptile part of my brain,

in the toughest muscle

of my heart. They may wrestle me

for that information, the day

one place or the other, also calls

me to walk new paths. Tell me-

I am listening tonight- are the

waterfalls where you are, as lovely,

as the ones you showed me? Your

voice lives still, for me, in clear

flowing waters, and in the spaces

between the words of the world’s poets.

 

Author's Note

for a friend whose deathversary falls in May. He had the most amazing reading voice I ever heard.

Reviews

[Kelly Scheppers]

The celebration should be of life. Death is a release for some, but for those who are taken tragically and suddenly, it is most difficult to grasp. I think losing a friend may be the hardest to overcome, for that is our foundation in life, the one constant we rely upon to be there. May his voice continue to reverberate through your life and be the very essence of your comfort in years to come! Thank you for sharing him with us!