Speaking of Haiku ...
Basho writes of the sound of temple bells
lingering on the air, and in the ear,
even after fading into silence – as if
he is hearing it now from the flowers.
*********
Tonight, after the poetry reading,
I come home to a message
to call my adopted brother.
He adopted me first – around 2007
when we were both on MySpace
and I started haiku and tanka groups.
He joined, and became my chief cohort;
even took over the haiku one awhile
when I needed a rest. Later
we migrated them to facebook,
shared the admin roles ever since.
We started meeting for coffee or lunch
on my Christmas visits to Melbourne
(where he lives, and I used to).
Somewhere along the line, we began
addressing each other as Sis and Bro.
A big woolly bear of a man,
he makes music and vibrant digital art –
and wrote the best erotic poem I ever read
(a reminiscence about an old girlfriend).
Another old girlfriend lives up here.
He told her to look me up. That
was a few years ago. Now she's one
of my dearest friends as well as his.
of my dearest friends as well as his.
Tomorrow she and I will meet
as planned last week, to see a movie.
Also I expect we'll talk about him.
I phoned him back. He told me his news.
He said he'd already spoken to her.
He explained why he won't be helping
with the poetry groups any more –
or be on Facebook any more at all.
'Haiku on Friday is yours,' he said.
He told me how much he appreciated
my friendship – and claimed I'd got him
writing again, all those years ago
after he'd been stopped (I never knew).
He sounded cheerful, calm and strong.
'It'll be just the way I want,' he said.
'Quick. And the doctor's on board
with giving me lots of pain-killers.'
I hope he leaves his artworks and music
and poetry up online. I'm going to want
to keep revisiting them.
*********
Even after the temple bells fall silent,
their sound will linger on the air
and rise up from the flowers.
I sent him this poem. In our last conversation, a couple of days before he died, he told me he loved it. I made a joke that I was writing his jisei (death poem) for him. We had that kind of relationship where such things could be said and understood, even at such a time. He laughed appreciatively, and said I was very cheeky.