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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