Poem

He stares from the page,

not at the viewer but beyond,

at his admirers

with that half smile

that slight glint in the eye.

 

His hands are dropped casually

at his side, unbusy and loose.

They have nothing to prove.

Life is at his fingertips.

 

Adjacent is the older man,

still looking good, now perhaps

a little stout, with trimmed beard.

Still someone others listen to.

 

And over the page, the detail.

How he is to be remembered.

That friendly laugh,

that insouciance,

 

those loves, fears, ambitions, failures,

their remnants now residing

in others’ memories or,

If not, vanished into

ephemeral, irretrievable history.