He sits somewhere reading something, relaxed; <br />I say his name once, twice, a little louder.. <br />He looks up, nearly startled, then breaks into that smile, <br />His eyes crinkling up with the long habit of perpetual kindness. <br /> <br />He quotes a verse from a poem, dead-pan, <br />I quote the next line, and so we go on- <br />Ambling down far promontories of time, <br />Two nimble children in search of a rhyme. <br /> <br />And he becomes Shakespeare and Byron and Shelley, <br />I become Dickinson, Teasdale and Lowell, <br />We go up the highest, sail down on thin air, <br />Not one bit worried if there's nothing below. <br /> <br />'Ah, parting's such sweet sorrow, ' I say, with half a turn. <br />'Pray, then, do not go gentle, for old age should burn'- <br />' And if thou wilt, remember, and if thou wilt, forget' <br />And happily, we tarried- for time had not won, yet.<br /><br />Patti Masterman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/my-friend-76/
