Dedicated to a friend and teacher, Trevor
“A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way for others.” ~ Ataturk
(1)
After all, you did not even stay to watch
the century turn so "see you Thursday"
became a one-and-only broken promise
stretching to eternity. It was the suddenness
the shockwave. "Too soon" we cried
with never grief enough expressed
to fill that hollow sounding emptiness.
I'd seen you turn the corner; a vanishing
as-if-by-magic act. Even premonition?
Just that brief appearance after, cold as the slab
a last lesson perhaps, proof perfect
that the body is this husk
you often spoke of.
(ii)
Long after our tears stopped
after the accommodation down these years
your virtues surfaced, bobbing up from the deep
down memories. Or did you leave behind
a mirror, reflecting not the form we craved
but all those hand-me-downs in humour
musical merits, patient practices
a litany of loving kindnesses
and yet those gifts of transmission
barely unwrapped
rarely thanked
and bit by bit swallowed
acknowledged
with shame
(iii) After the funeral, you came walking past
a glance at my window but still no wave
no stopping by. Simply carried on
too far ahead to catch up, I stood still
in that dream, and stood and stood long after
And only now have understood
after another's October departure
teacher; husband; forever friends together there. *
Such relief in that, and these days always here.
Remembrance is reinvention
I move through all the teachings
relish all the loving that has been bestowed.
*Trevor died October 13th 1999; Martin, October 7th 2008
For my MTB prompt “Let’s lament without the lachrymose” we are writing an Elegy for a person or persons which comprises all 3 aspects in turn of lament, praise and consolation
PoetryPix 