I have a friend, a poet

by Bobby Byrd

I have a friend, a poet
     in memory of Robert (Bob) Burlingame

I have a friend, a poet —
he’s dead now —
in the mornings he sat at his desk,
waiting
the morning light coming through the window,
a fresh sheet of white paper in his Olivetti portable,
waiting for a poem to come.
He never wondered from where these poems
came, from inside, from outside,
but there was a quiet place, he was not sure
where, it had no name,
and little shards of sights and sounds,
of touch and smell,
of memory too,
bubbled up, like those bunches
of little yellow flowers
in the front yard by the sidewalk,
nameless, what are they,
a smile of his daughter eating her breakfast,
the sudden squeal
of mourning doves taking flight,
a mountain lion perched on a boulder above a game trail,
a blue heron in the still water of sky,
like him, waiting.

He loved the Guadalupe Mountains,
and that’s where he went,
him and his wife, when he retired
and years they spent there
walking the trails, him writing poems,
she making art, until her old age weakness
brought her down out of the mountains,
but he stayed on,
that’s where he wanted to die,
he told her when he came to visit,
and he told his children too,
he wanted to be found alongside
a trail somewhere, a gift
to the mountains,
to the birds and animals, the insects,
the worms and the tiny beasts.
That was his wish.
That was not quite how it all ended,
but who really cares now.
It was his wish.
He didn’t know where the wish came from.
from inside, from outside,
but he knew there was a quiet place,
but he was not sure
where, it had no name —
and so he lived in his hermitage,
a poet monk, waiting
for the great cleansing,
waiting like his friends,
the blue heron
and the mountain lion.