Michael Bassis

I lost a friend today
Or maybe 500 who can not see me.
Really not lost, just newly “out of reach”
Parked in the “ethernet” far far away.

On one of Shakespeare’s April birthdays
I once called my sadness forth.
For when sorrows come they come
Not single spies, but in battalions. 

When will I see Frost’s woods again?
Or see lives of others also lost.
In full color with new clothes,
Stay now a while but in memory.

I won’t allow you to go
As stay they all who matter to me.
Untouched. If only they’d come or call
But I will hold them fast and tight.

Michael, as my memory’s clear
Told me once he thought we
Only get three close friends
our whole life long.

I’ll always mark him as one of three
But then again, he’s not right.
For both, far far more than three
For him whole bushel baskets full

Follow along and check my math
There were those when we were both green.
Though the sun’s shadow hides them in the snow
Old friends wander through time and place.

Why much later did we begin?
What drew us to each other at the start?
Neighbors an easy walk away
Saturday nights of wine and spaghetti?

Gradually, so gradually
We shared places and times.
We both had daughters.
Of late he thought my limp worse than his.

From different worlds and at the same times
We found exactly the same age.
We had distant fathers and mothers
How possible so strangely alike?

Three words come to mind
Why and goodbye the first two.
He’d love asking why about much
I’d shrug and sometimes answer.

We both loved explaining,
After all we were both professors.
Sometimes, we’d make answers up,
Necessary because we both had daughters.

A second word noted here: goodbye.
In our shared decade of the 1960’s
Judy Collins would sing a Leonard Cohen song:
“Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye.”

I cite it for our daughters sakes.
Who are champions linking message to song
Myself I’ve always-never said goodbye
“See you soon” sprang often to my lips.

The third word now whispered at last
Only easily said to daughters
Almost never to each other.
I’ve been lucky to love you, Michael.

Just as we both had bushel baskets of friends
Mine is full of fond memories.
Why? Just secretly knowing I’ve had a “boatfull” of luck.
No goodbyes will be said

My love for you lives in my heart.

For sure her third verse makes the most meaning for me as I think of Michael, It goes:

I’m not looking for another as I wander in my time
Walk me to the corner, our steps will always rhyme
You know my love goes with you as your love stays with me
It’s just the way it changes like the shoreline and the sea