Must be 30 years or more
since I saw you
And we are still
too young
to die.

You were the boy
who liked reptiles.
We played
together with Michael
in that last patch
of wilderness
on which they built Kennedy airport.
I see your face laughing.
The boy
who never called me tomboy.
You grew in a good, solid family
I admired and envied.
Living your clean and ordinary life.
I have carried you with me
always.

I loved you completely.
In a child’s way.
In adolescence we drifted.
I haven’t known you
underneath the husband
and father
and schoolteacher, and fisherman.
An outdoorsman, it figures.
I am certain
you were something special.
That same kind boy
with blue eyes.

We made so many trips
to the swamps down in Kennedy.
You and Michael are with me
as I wade the marshes in the reserve
outside my door in Minnesota
And as I walk them
frozen in winter.
My little patch of wilderness.

One day, the earliest in spring,
a chickadee sang
in a branch
inches from my face.
I stood, silent
so she would stay
and sing a while longer.

You and Michael were there.
Michael, the bird boy
who moved to Australia.

I once studied frogs
for a few weeks (only)
near Itasca’s Mississippi headwaters
One of the last pristine forests, they tell me.
A last patch of wilderness.
I waded the swamps
on behalf of university
learning
what the frogs
are telling us
about our world.

You and Michael were there.
You, the boy who liked frogs
who settled in, closer to home.

I wrote a poem once.
It said
‘Take me to the wilderness
to the consecrated places…’
You and Michael; we
shared that wonderful gift.
That swampy, other world in New York city.

This moment
there is a robin
just outside my window here
pulling a worm from the ground
underneath the grass.
The day is gray and soggy.
Perfect for the robin’s work.
If not for that gift
would I ever have noticed?

Thirty and more years
since I’ve known you.
Now I see you standing
Wading at the edge of the sea
I feel I understand completely
why you are there
even if only
for a while longer.