Until the very end, you chose to stay in the mountains where our lives were predictable as those long seasons of rain and brief months of fitful sun. A morning walk in the park or a stroll up the main road where every shopkeeper nodded his head in greeting. Assandas, Bheroomull's, Pines Theatre, Star Cafe. Mercury Drug and the queue of boys ready to shine your shoes. Long, too, the record of your years as public servant. In between: births and marriages and deaths. Doctors' house calls, carpenters and construction by installment. The shame of women caught trysting with men, the excuses made for men who strayed. You're not around anymore so I can't ask you to finish the stories that were told. Not how they ended, but how they began.
Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.