He Was My Longtime Friend

Ten years ago you left the bus

to start the end of you and the end of us.

Ten days later you suddenly died

in a deck-chair on a city footpath.

I grieved your loss

day after day and on and on

but now I finally have come through

as strong,

or stronger than I’ve ever been

as I’ve seen you in the world unseen.

I sit here in the misty morning

thinking of that last weekend

cutting ‘willow wands’ and wattle sticks,

drinking espressos or woody & earthy Assam tea

and we were contented you and me.

I see deep below

there always was a dark hollow

where you lived with homeless men

but up there in the light of heaven

you still do your best

to find a pillow to ‘line a nest’

caring for ‘those left behind’

when the road ahead is unlit by friends.

So the ants are here!

But only seen singularly,

at the bathroom basin, on the window sill

meandering over my laptop screen

inside the pages of my book

this week, one is wherever I look;

not the path that hundreds took

as you observed their worker ways

to while the hours in your unscheduled days.

Time is for the living

the breathing-in and giving

the breathing out

to take life in, breathing all to begin.

Now and Again

Where and When

Here and Now

we learn somehow

life is here this very moment

we never know when living goes.

God Knows.

(Written on April 26, 2015 in memory of CMR who was my long-time friend.)