You whose memory comes to me winter afternoons as the soon gone sun
falls low and thin
You whom I knew long and well
You I knew but slightly, knew not well but cared to,
had there been place enough and time
You who have come to hate me now
You who are the trees out the window to me, the shallow-rooted I have
always loved
I greet you in my unsent letters, in both my random and my steady thoughts
You whom I failed to thank and you I failed to turn to
You I have tried and tried to speak with and have not been able to cross
those seas
You I fought with in the snow in unsatisfactory shoes, marching up and down,
shouting at each other, so hot we were, so cold, the drifts deepening
You I let down and you I picked up by the highway
You who have made a name for yourself
You who were called away and never came back,
you who would not leave
You I worked with as we had never worked before, side by side
in the studio with five windows glazed by yellow light
You I no longer know but fear dead—
drugs, car wrecks, the several wars,
the usual deaths of my generation—
And you who have gone the distance, beyond your disappointments,
your cancers and their dire cures, my friends
I send you this letter, from the landscape of our years together
You must not wonder if I think of you still—
I have remained steadfast here
I have remembered you wholly into this day
from Dear AllFind more by Maggie Anderson at the library
Copyright © 2017 Maggie Anderson
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Four Way Books.