It’s been a long time, old friend,

made longer by the fullness of years passing.

No doubt your life, like mine,

was flush with chapters

of life insistent,

laying claim to every precious irredeemable moment.

Dislodging the last, replacing the past

with that ceaseless passion for next page,

the next story, the next truth.

Yet death, like life,

refuses time,

to take seriously

the measure we apportion.

Spun straight back to times and travels,

of meals and madness,

to memories shared.

You and I so young and wild,

and sometimes brave.

To the endless future

that ran unquestionably

from our age-tender fingertips.

They tell me now your body

is worn and waning,

from the weight of that very same

irrepressible time.

My wish is that the wonder was enough.

That the ways love touched your life

thrilled, and nourished.

And that others, as I,

will remember with a warming delight

that reckless liberty of the time

when we were friends together.