<> for the love of friends<>


How does one write
of one he knew not?

the ancillary evidence
mounts relentlessly,
the double toil and trouble moments
edged now, slow vanquished by
steady accumulation
of the evidentiary

a man who lived his life well,
will be inevitably,
nay, justifiably, deservedly
be well remembered...

one examines the evidence with
eyepiece lenses calibrated
to one's own soul,
for this is the natural condition
of humanity

yet wonder,
what manner, what scale,
does one rightly employ
to judge another's  
plantings in the soil?

rightly judge another?

then you hear
a woman say,
she knew not knew
this man Eryc,
revealing an honest tertiary,
even cursory knowledge
of an anecdotal life well lived

our shared quandary,
yet she solves
this judicial issue
by asking of herself
a question
so stunningly elementary,
which both
asks and answers
the double risk
you have imposed,
to write of one you can never behold,
and in doing so,
judge thyself...

What Would Eryc Do?*

this crystal rapid current question
erodes doubt, the fear to tread
where one knows not
when a stranger says to another,
indeed to many others:

heard tell of this young man,
and know now to ask myself
when I too am junctured, in doubt,
What Would Eryc Do?

there is no doubt, no juncture,
just a provident question
a makers's mark
of and upon a man,
whose future shortened,
will live far, far longer than most,
if one simple applies
a standard to one's own life of

What Would Eryc Do?