Wednesday, May 31, 2017

friendship's requiem


Certain small things/Touch nerve-lines to the heart.
-- John O'Donahue, To Bless the Space Between Us*

Short lines
Of an old fool for no one
Who will read them

Rest in peace
What did I hope for
Anyway
Really
What did I want really
I wanted
wanted
Every now and then
I wanted every now and then
Wanted to
Wanted every now and then to do something nice
Not so nice as you fear
Not that nice
Not nice that way
Something small that you would like
That only you would like
And only I could know you’d like
And I alone could make for you.

A little work of hand and head
A note a tone
A tone of voice
to answer one of yours

And yes I wanted
From you
I wanted
From you
Time to time
To hear you
I wanted to hear you
from time to time
The time the place the smell the heat
The snap of where and when you are.
A little thing
Nothing really

I can do a lot with that
A man of imagination I am
I do a lot with nothing
With little
That’s my métier
Too much perhaps with little
Perhaps too little
It’s in my wheelhouse
My scope of practice
My Modus Operandi

Facio facere feci factus
Do or make
I make something of nothing
Things of nothing
I do a lot with little
Not much

Just a little something
Nothing at all
Is what I want
Wanted because
Out of nothing I make something

A note a tone

Not so much
Nothing really
Not so much to ask
In return
Return for
A small thing but mine own
My soul
Nothing much

The rest is silence

*(New York: Doubleday, 2008), p. 165

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