You Left Before Our Dinner, Old Friend

Apologies for the lapse last Friday, BPFers! We're now back to our regular schedule of weekday updates. May you enjoy this contribution from Angie Boissevain; Angie, thank you for sharing with us at Turning Wheel.

You Left Before Our Dinner, Old Friend

Angie Boissevain

 I’m bereft without your face, especiallyyour eyes, always large with sympathy,and your wide Greek lips eager with talk.Our speaking always pleased me,our words a vivid rocky stream of lovingand disagreement. You thought you hadthe only proper way to teach our Zen,pressing me about  my knowledgeof ritual, so important to you,and my authority to teach, while Ismiled and assured you, and let it be.Twenty years of bean and kale dinners,book exchanges, and long sushi lunchesafter slow slow walks through town. And now you’ve left before our dinner.No longer hungry, I rest and thinkof my last view of you, after your suddenawful fall.  You were stretched under a sheeton a high bed where you twitchedand sighed before you slept, then once,woke, and the one good eyeopened with a glint of brightness, lookedat me one last time, eye filled with ourfamiliar truth that nothing is permanent.Now, from your lugubrious position, I seethat you see, even as you go, the marvelousunspoken joke between us.