[montsnmags]

Patricia was one of the dearest people I knew...one of few friends I have that resolve from the imaginary into solid sincerity through the beauty of their own personality. She was so very wise, so very calming, so very honest and thoughtful and helpful.

When I had a problem, a problem that tied me in knots, and one for which I didn't want support but for someone to give it objective voice, to me and others, it was her I turned to. It wasn't advocacy I sought (or was it...?), which is easy, but understanding, and in her enormous strength in the emotion I treasure most, empathy, she, always so giving, gave me her understanding, and thus gave it back to me, for me to understand myself. And, after presenting my thoughts to others, better than I ever could, she came to me and still said "What do you want me to do now?" - a question that offers explicit willingness to help, while making one question one's own expectations. This was Patricia, and always was, to me - someone who gave in every way.

She made me question myself, respect myself, but also wish to be better than I am. To be more like her. She changed me, and changing stubborn and hard-worn prejudices and repeated furrows of habitual thought process, for the better, is not an easy thing for a person to do to and for another. She respected the Fool, but also saw the prodigal son that needs to find a home.

I liked her, and she was my Friend. And I miss her, and feel the world becomes yet more hollow without her, and resounds so. But she swims to the west now, where one day I hope to follow...



The Ballade of the Swimmer

From foetal pacificus some seraphim
will bear downward feet-first to fundus below,
but me, well before I could walk I could swim
and fly through the current of maritime flow.
My world is aquatic...amphibious, though
I'd sit on a peak or beneath banyan tree;
but One is the spring I will never outgrow -
to dive into water and sink in the sea.

I've loved behind dunes on a prayer and a whim
and drunk my fair share of the ethanol glow.
The world's been my oyster, I've ridden its rim
and fallen both sides of the razor tableau.
I've swallowed a lion and eaten some crow
My cup's runneth over at afternoon tea, but
I'd give up transcendence and pawn my Thoreau
to dive into water and sink in the sea

The light through my vitreous humour is dim
The limbs that propelled me won't get up and go
and each exhalation's an aqueous hymn
to lachrymal thoughts that we seep what we row.
So this is a ballade and not a rondeau,
the ebb of my tide and a final decree
I give up my breath...that I'd give, quid pro quo,
to dive into water and sink in the sea

The sand's at my heal and the arch and the toe,
the wave's to my chest and my back's to the lee,
If born in an ocean than borne I will go
To dive into water and sink in the sea.



(To Patricia, who helped teach me to swim)

marc