He Was My Peripatetic Friend

Time is for the living

the breathing-in and giving

the breathing-out

to take life in, breathing all to begin.

Now and again

Where and when

Here and now we learn somehow

life is here this very moment

we never know when living goes.

God knows.

Written in memory of CMR on April 26, 2015

Ten years ago to the day, to the hour, to the minute

I watched my friend step off the bus

and meander across the south-eastern park-lands of Adelaide.

He very suddenly died ten days later,

at the same time of morning, in that corner of the city.

He was walking past a sports store 

and slumped in a footpath deck-chair.

He was my peripatetic friend.