Upon a Post Sent to Me by Aris Sevag (1946-2012), In Memoriam

Entre le vide et l’événement pur
– Paul Valéry, Le cimetière marin

here in this void the Aegean intersects with the Araxes

In the silence the Sender of this missive
no longer responds

I’ve missed Charlize Theron’s appearance on t.v.

but the red blue and white of this PRIORITY MAILER
means more to me with its message

Before the Abyss Mayakovsky’s Voice

This April’s bereft
the taste of the martini bitter
to the palate

thought wanders again in the Sculpture Gardens
in tenebrae Rodin’s “Burghers of Calais”
turned to their point-of-no-return stare

my hand falters on the page an erasure smudges “Let each
become all that he was created
capable of being” in my hands Charent’s book.

fa tu quel ch’io non posso; –

like this envelope sings O my Friend beyond death.

*   *   *

Note: from fa tu quel ch’io non posso; — …. medieval Italian for “do that which I cannot” – from G. Boccaccio (1315-1375), Canzoni del decameron.