POSTCARD FROM A GREEK ISLAND Poem by Rutger Kopland

Herman, I was going to write you a card,
one of those silly postcards, complete with a joke
about, well, you know - you know about what,

but I heard you had already died
before I'd found a joke to tell.

I'm still alive, our conversation is not finished,
but these last few days I live bent over, over words
I cross out, write again -

What were we talking about, where had we
got to, without expecting death
you don't write poetry, we'd both
touchingly agreed on that

poetry was happiness, the happiness of finding a few words
that wanted to share a moment together
before death came to fetch us,

a joke, a joke left carefully unsaid
about death, crossing this out and writing it again,
that was poetry.

So I'll never see you again.

These last days I live bent over, before all that,
before that shy body, that melancholy head
with which you spoke, before all that
is buried alive,

I mean, I live bent over that card,
you know the sort, far too blue a sea,
far too blue a sky:
Happy days in Greece.