Rameeza, Unlikely Confidante, This World Is An Absurd Place: I Grieve Theirs Losses, The Untimely, Early Deaths Of Tony C, Dan Fogelberg And Naoko Poem by Dennis Ryan

Tuesday morning, February 13, 2024, begun at 7: 18 a.m.; completed at 8: 29 a.m.

'Now, though, the meadow scene is the first thing that comes back to me. The smell of the grass … And yet, as clear as the scene may be, no one is in it. No one. Naoko is not there, and neither am I … Naoko, and the self I was then, and the world I had then: where could they have gone? … I can't even bring back her face—not straight away, at least. All I'm left holding is the background, pure scenery, with no people at the front.'
—Haruki Murakami, Norweigian Wood, Chapter 1

Rameeza, unlikely confidante, this world we cohabit,
worlds apart, is an absurd place: I am greatly pained
by, despair at, grieve their losses, the untimely, early
deaths of Tony Conigliaro, Dan Fogelberg and Naoko—
though a fictional character, she lives on in my mind,
my mind's eyes: I continue to see her standing there,
all alone, in a winter mountain meadow, her bewilderment,
the tears streaming done, Watanabe nowhere to be found,
not anywhere in the vicinity—the times, their timing being
'out of joint'—followed after by his shocking discovery,
the film showing only her legs, feet dangling as snow
falls across her pale face, covers the field full of trees …
Dan Fogelberg, his exquisite melodies, fabulous song
endings, vocals gone; Tony C never caught complaining,
persevering to the end, though he suffered tremendously
during his final years, gone. It is enough to make me …
Rameeza, unlikely confidante, you are a tender human
being beyond all else, and I value your humanity for all
the right reasons despite all of our differences: you can
trust that I tell truths here if not elsewhere. Unlike him, Watanabe, to his Naoko, I will recall always your face,
its outline in a flash—how it gently curves, its lineaments—
though I know little else, little to nothing about you, this
your preference. As I told you, there are abandoned
apple, plum and pear orchards upstate, in fields behind
my childhood home leading up into the mountains, so so
many apples falling in season—Yellow Transparent most
of all—we need pick them from the bursting trees, pick
them up from the ground from among the bees as well,
eat, steam, juice so as not to lose, waste their sweetness—
the wasting being our mortal sin, yes, only mortal we after
all is said and done, all of us flawed into this final humility,
hope-filled with eros, agape, storge, philia, always philia.