Elegy for Brenda Walker (1957-2024)

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