Tonight, past has become A vertiginous tunnel that Doesn’t return, even An echo of my call.

You must be down There, somewhere, beyond Any resounding, or even worse Beyond any summons

Issued by my grief At such displacement. Perhaps Memory’s cather is really Insufficient to keep remembrance

From fading. The years have washed Away, along with minor details of Those minor lives, more important things: Friendship and promise of friendship.

No wonder, the rain gargling in the gutters Reminds me of the undead, laughing.

Nostalgia comes with the smell of rain, you know – Donald Justice

And in the lush undergrowth Cicadas have become minstrels Narrating, into the night, some epic Of loss, in song. And the memory Of other rains returns, as sporadic Glimpses of photographs on the bedside Bureau in flashes of sheet lightning.

What has become of you, once my best Friend, now a colossal mound of silence, A dead root hanging from the side Of my chest, a steel track unbolted, ties Rotten, broken and randomly upended, Rainy nights when we sat talking over Steamy cups of chai, whitening like fossils?

So today walking in the rain, To those inscrutable gods of fate, I pay with your alienation The price of this long exile.

You shall receive (and I shall give) A walk into a thunderstorm Along a rail line, skipping Over ties black with use and grease, Feathers edged like knifes shed By Canada Geese, an untrodden meadow Of wildflowers in the middle Of a wood, and from there a view Of a lake with waters crinkled like The corners of your laughing eyes, black Dragonflies mating over the waters, a week old Beard like fine sandpaper polishing Your skin music in smoky dives, babel Of foreign souks, warm bread and knife, A house propped with books – setting A stage for us to converse in Shakespeare, An occasional quarrel with banging doors For rifle shots, a narrow bed in which we Have to lie on our sides, like two mirrors, To fit, a ceaseless turning towards you In desire, need and love, poems Without endings including This one…