Memoir
in memory of Brenda Walker
(i)
Out walking
the relative cool
of the morning
and discussing
day’s unfolding
with the magpie tiding,
the loss of a friend
emanates
from the bush
of Kaarta Koomba
and follows the river
up over The Scarp,
traces river, brook,
and dry ‘winter creek’
to inflect so many
conversations
on writing, on how
to make a way
through memoir
and remember
all we have passed,
all we will sense.
(ii)
In discussing
the possibilities
of fiction
when Crush
appeared
in a city
retuning
or resetting
under Moreton Bay
figs in Hyde Park,
we extended
the conversation
across immediate
years
to the poetics
of death
and how much
we were both
going to make life
work the best
way possible,
whatever
the circumstances,
the conditions.
(iii)
This agreement
we had
about one day
meeting
on a street
in New York,
just to pass
and say ‘hi’
and keep
on going
towards
the lives
we were writing
into other
versions
of a story.
Or the agreement
not to say
anything after
you had a word
with authorities
to free me
from the lock-up
after my protest
to release
incarcerated animals
from their pain.
You merged
in and out of the shadows,
but always there
if called upon.
Not often, sometimes.
(iv)
So generous
when Tracy and I
married, to offer
a plate whose design
was a mandala,
an exposition
to the building
of a friendship
that could follow
the shifts
and resolve
however long
between messages,
catching up
even briefly.
We so delighted
in your next life, your
deep bonds.
(v)
Out walking
the relative cool
of the morning
and discussing
day’s unfolding
with the magpie tiding,
your wry, friendly
glance of knowing
replaces
a harsh sun
with a warmth
of insight
to what’s not working
and how it might
be made whole.
An impossible day.
Remember Iggy and the Stooges
playing riparian static?
Not your music,
but you listened anyway.
Remember Cambridge,
the river that could be drained.
Then later. Much later.
Peppermint tea. Another
river pushing
down to the sea,
but also looking back
over its shoulder.
Then different oceans
away from your
recovery, though
reconnecting,
through memoir
which was your course
I shared. Different
and the same. How
we make stories.
And where. And when.
John Kinsella