A Valediction: The Constant Gardener Paints Two Chinese Characters On The Horizon Prior To Your Leave-Taking. Poem by Dennis Ryan

begun Tuesday night, September 12,2017; completed Friday morning, July 29,2022; updated Thursday morning, August 11,2022

--for my friend Amanda Onofrio

"Nothing matters but the quality of the affection—in the end—
that has carved the trace in the mind dove sta memoria."
--Ezra Pound, from Canto LXXV

I paint one brush stroke, two, on the horizon
just prior to your leave-taking: "ichi", "ni" — ニ
(They represent the numbers one and two in Chinese
and Japanese.) My emotions are conveyed with each stroke,
one, two—your life runs parallel to mine, at least for now.
But no two lines ever perfectly align, are ever perfectly parallel—
they summon and give way. I am pretty much an open book;
talkative; just read my face. You are more reticent, discreet,
listen well; you're hard to read sometimes—tell me that feeling
with that look again. And here we are today, me reading this
to you—one friend to the other—before your leave-taking.
Two becomes one both ways, one way: ni, ichi, ryoohoo
2つは両方の方法で1つになり、1つの方法は
1つになります Japanese proves quite difficult reading.
Now comes the most difficult part, writing the ending,
not the greeting: I get the feeling that I will have to write
this many, many times and probably never get it right.
(I started this poem some years ago, didn't I?)
One poem bleeds into another; one ending into another,
one life into another and I get the feeling, again,
that you can intuit my ending, what I want to say
here and now... yes, here and now...before here
and now becomes that time later, then and there.