Harkaway Faraway

For Joanna

When we last saw Joanna, we brought fresh flowers

a long-stemmed bouquet to give our hostess

whose hospitality a life embowered

with radiant remembered warmth that won't grow less

Away faraway, someone I haven’t seen

except in daydreams 

now more rare

she moves me now as when 

she asked me

why?

why was it 

I was there?

 

I did as she asked

wrote her a poem

on

leave-takings 

fond farewells

Away faraway, more urgent now to return

to those times when friends were alive

to that table, those chairs

those

bottles of myth

we

poured nightly       

She died suddenly, so did Yvonne.

David H lingered with cancer too long

he seemed tired of it

when we saw him last

Harkaway faraway, hark their faint calls

as they travel onward into our past

Dick Russell © Richard M Russell

                    2024