Tell me again how the white heron rises and flies across the nacreous river at twilight towards the distant islands.

I am rearranging my books. It seems like Linda's law books and Carl Sandburg never really mixed correctly with my Neruda and Ocampo. I am trying to rectify this conundrum aided by my in ability to sleep between 2-6 in the morning. Woo hoo. That is beside the point, which is I opened an old friend (Titled same as this posting) by Hayden Carruth. The page I opened it to is a poem about the poet Jim Wright. It spanked me someplace deep and I wanted to share it, but the person I want to share it with is having trouble cracking open sad things at this time, so I thought I would put it here.


Not Transhistorical Death, or at Least Not Quite


Jim Wright who was a good poet and my friend, died two or three
years ago.
I was told at the time that we did not lose him.
I was told that memories of him would keep him in this world.
I don't remember who told me this, just that it was in the air, like
the usual fall-out from funerals.

I knew it was wrong.
Now I have begun to think how it was wrong.
I have begun to see that it was not only sentimental but simplistic.
I have examined Jim in my mind.
I remember him, but the memories are as dead as he is.
Whit is more important is how I see him now.
There, there, in that extreme wild place, that emptiness.
He is near enough to be recognizable, but too far away to be
reached by a cry or a gesture.
He is wearing a light-weight, brightly colored shirt.
his trousers belong to a suit, but the coat has been discarded.
His belt is narrow and somehow stays straightly on his pot belly.
His shoes are thin and shiny.
I think he bought those shoes on his last journey to Europe.
He is walking away, slowly.
He is wandering, meandering.
Sometimes he makes a little circle.
Sometimes he pauses and looks to one side or the other.
Sometimes he looks down.
Occasionally he looks up.
He never looks back, at least not directly.
Although he recedes very gradually, and becomes very gradually
smaller, I continue to see all the aspects of his face and
figure clearly.
He is thinking about something and I know what.
It is not the place he now occupies in my life.
He cannot imagine that, only I can.
He is neither what he was (obviously), nor what is his (for I am
quite sure I am inventing that).
Is he Jim Wright? Is he not someone else?
Yes, he is Jim Wright. No, he is not someone else. (Who els could
he possibly be?)
When I die, he will arrive at where he is going. And I will set off
after him.



-Hayden Carruth