It might’ve been the last time I saw him
That trip up north along the coast,
At least at points inevitably so.
And in all its vagueness surely,
It’s still further shrouded by that doubt,
That almost disbelief:
Surely there was at least one time other.
But if there was, the memory’s withholding
Insistent upon the poetry of this –
The final memory,
The beauty and the beast.
I never cried on hearing he had passed
But stopped to think a thousand thoughts
A thousand reasons
Why our paths
They should have crossed.
But we didn’t know each other
And though I bow to some intended whisper
The wind is only pandering to
My own instilled importance.
We had become nothing to each other,
Just echoes of other worlds
That perhaps we’d wished we had explored.
© The Hairy Teacher, 22:27. 14/5/22, Az erkélyen, Bölöni György utcában, Budapesten.