The Far Away Death of a Friend, Roy Samuels

My mind is a past of
witness to noted existences
writing on a slate of powdered snow.
Paths through it by them
asking me to try theirs,
as if slowly coming to know.

Many roads cast off
in error and in vein,
the light somehow gone out from them.
Clearly my own loss,
at any forgotten cost,
I now would try them again.

So it is tonight that Roy's
evening will close
and my wide eyes grow old
with loss and everything that heavy is
cantankerous you were
for that's how life to you was.

Why is it when one stands out
sharp and cold
eventually grows old
we take every opportunity to shush them
til after they are gone
we find more for them to say
from the graveyard.

gf 91