9/27/22
You have…Dante?
The last word of his sentence
was spoken to me like a
sputtered whisper.
I…didn’t exactly know what to say.
It truly felt awkward.
(especially since
never have I ever
read any Dante)
(And especially since
hearing him ask it
was me hearing it
for the first time myself)
(What’s confusing for some
could be just heavy for others.)
He peered into me,
as if to know me deeper
After all this time? He asked.
His voice was… shaking.
You carry Dante?
He’s with you?
I turned, inwardly somehow,
to the other one, on my left,
who still just sat there,
saying nothing.
I couldn’t help but pause for myself,
noticing how he went about his own witnessing of
the weight.
Quite astonishing to see one great poet watching the plight of another,
both of them alive, even after their own deaths.
(and he watched all this while eating something, I think. He was truly enjoying the moment.)
The one on the right continued.
He’s here?! With you?
I noticed the one on my left
still saying nothing. Just…
smiling. I think I even heard a
chuckle.
I sighed, the whole thing
just so goddamn weighty.
I still don’t understand it all.
Apparently so, I exhaled.
The one on my right
was speechless
at my “apparently”
and, even in his old age,
especially in his old age,
his wonderment
at the proximity
of his own hero
(news to me)
and personal savior
made the man become
ancient
and alive
and godlike
and all at once
became something more like a child
and a fire lit somewhere in his eyes
and he cried out
“With YOU!……”
and he clutched my chest
and the one sent to me as
a teacher and a father,
buried his face into my breast,
his tired, wrinkled, bearded, greying face
and wept tears of bliss.
Yes, bliss.
They dripped.
