But I do grieve, grieve still;
a continent, an
ocean and a year
removed from you, I still
find it impossible
to think of you as past,
and I know too well
by now there'll never
be anything like
a persuasive
reconciliation
for your having gone.
What there is instead
is knowing that at least
we had you for a time,
and that we still have
evidence of you, in
your work and in the love
which eternally
informs the work, that
one love which never ends.
And to be able
to tell oneself that once
one knew a man wholly
unsusceptible
to triviality,
bitterness or rancor,
who'd fashioned himself
with such dedication
and integrity
that he'd been released
from those resentments
and envies that can make
the fullest life seem mean:
your life was never mean,
never not inspiring.
•
A year, summer again,
warm, my window open
on the courtyard where
for a good half hour
an oboe has been
practicing scales. Above
the tangle of voices,
clanging pans, a plumber's
compressor hectically
intensifying,
it goes on and on,
single-minded, patient
and implacable,
its tempo never
faltering, always
resolutely focused
on the turn above,
the turn below,
goes on as the world
goes on, and beauty,
and the passion for it.
Much of knowing you
was knowing that, knowing
that our consolations,
if there are such things,
dwell in our conviction
that always somewhere
painters will concoct
their colors, poets sing,
and a single oboe
dutifully repeat
its lesson, then repeat
it again, serenely
mounting and descending
the stairway it itself
unfurls before itself.
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