There’s nothing quite like an Old Friend. I have a precious handful. It’s good to have someone who knew you Before, who knew you Then and knows you Now, and maybe has followed the progression. History is a powerful thing.
Jon was one of my best friends in college. He was always good for listening, almost always good for talking (except when he was a turnip), and generally just good at understanding. He was fun to sing with, fun to laugh with, and he wrote poetry. And something I always appreciated about him: his powerful honesty and prescience about time. He knew our college days were good ones, and that chances were good we’d miss them for the rest of our lives.
We argued about the moon once, I remember. He said it was lying on its back; I was convinced it was on its belly. That was a good conversation.
For a long time we lost touch. All I had of him were the bound volumes of his poetry that he had kindly given me. And then—when was it?—we got in touch again. We exchange e-mail from time to time; he wrote to me just the other day and it made me laugh out loud. I have smiled more than once over it since. Ah, yes. The comfort of an Old Friend.
You are right, of course, Jon. I have not forgotten. Silence is foo.
And for you, Oh Reader, one of his poems (it was really hard to pick, but it is seasonal, and Jon is, for the time being, in the Caribbean):
Winter walks alone
He treads beneath Orion’s belt
A Seasoned man of weathered age
Thick layers cover cooling rage
As the icicles unmelt
His ire could liquefy a stone
Or harden waterfalls to steel—
The blue lights dance beneath his heel
When, sullen, Winter walks alone
* * *
A shiver shudders under pelt—
Crisp cherry chapping wind to cheeks
Paints pigment, as the cracked ice speaks
Just below where knee has knelt
I’m tired, breathless to the bone—
My arctic heart can’t be kept warm
When there’s no fire in the storm—
On sullen winter walks, alone…
-Jon Christian Godin, December 1992
