Day 74

Refaat said writers must write whatever the circumstances
and one of his students said Now we are all Refaat
I am failing, Refaat; I am failing to tell your story
I am losing days, hours, months
I am thinking now of what the dead must miss:
Never to hear again the closing passage
of Ralph Vaughan Williams’
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.
Or the hymn by Tallis himself I learned to play
on a snowy day in New Mexico from Larry Lipnik.
The snow.   The Sangre de Cristo mountains.   My friend Susan Meredith.
I am thinking of everything there is to miss:
silken ears of my dogs   Their warm breathing.
I am thinking of Refaat’s body under the rubble.
His smile when Nora greeted him that last time on video.
What he will miss of his children, his wife, his students.
Sun-warmed strawberries in summer.
The streets of his city he loved to walk in:
No longer streets   no longer there   rubble, rebar.
(Never to hear again Nina Simone’s Ne me quitte pas)
Never to touch again skin, grass, petals