Residual
Thirty years after the sudden death of someone I didn’t know terribly well, what remains? Not his name. Not quite his face, but something of his posture and physique. A strong impression of good-natured and thoughtful conviviality, based on possibly no more than half a dozen conversations, always on the periphery of punk shows. The shock and sadness of his death from a brain tumor. Someone who, on rare occasions when he pops into my head, still makes me smile, and shapes my memory of that whole period in my life. Good times. A good dude.
Wish I remembered his name.
fledgling cuckoo flopping across the road
adoptive parents nowhere to be found
poor little rain-crow didn’t mean to be a parasite
opening my umbrella I spook a bear
in the depths of the hollow widely spaced raindrops
water still gurgling under the rocks
and the crashing of something big in black velvet
upslope through woodferns and storm-downed timber
a distant cuckoo singing who are you you you
I know a lullaby when I hear one
One interesting residue of my long-ago year in the Kansai region is that humid rainy days in the summer still remind me a bit of Japan, not necessarily in a fully conscious way (which is why I call it a residue). Similarly, a snowy, cold winter day might have an extra charge of excitement and possibility to it from my early childhood years in Maine.