You will never exist in memory, in yesterdays. 

You always will be here today

talking with me in the halls.

Telling me a story about an ethnic writer

whose work we both admire.

I see you at your desk, head bent

over a student’s paper,

the white page covered in your

tight penciled script.

I hear your words at department

meetings, speaking truth to power,

(to use a cliché), getting to the heart

of a debate,  piercing through pleasantries.

And I see us commiserating

about bureaucratic rules and regs

or the pernicious effects of social media

as we devour broiled lemon chicken

at the College Diner (the best you said).

And I still taste the garlicky guac

you brought to every department party.

The chef in you relishing

homegrown and farm to table food.

I remember poetry evenings.

One time at Bard we listened to Joyce Carol

Oates’s cat poems that she recited

in a mincing voice.

We squashed our laughter.

So foolish you and I agreed.

Your keen sense of beauty,

your love of the perfect conceit

outraged at her slapdash, sloppy verse.

At home I open a folder of my old poems

and there it is.  There you are counseling me.

Your penciled recasting of my words

so much better, perfected in a way

I couldn’t imagine.

Your brilliance still streaks

across my world like a wayward

comet, or star showers, unexpected,

lighting up a dark, night sky

You will never be a ghost,

a revenant from another world.

You will always be fully here.

Fully Present.

In words, in thoughts, in deeds.