For My Friend

What Was Given
by Richard Foerster

What was given came without
the usual reasons--the earth

that day having completed
no meaningful circuit of the sun.

The giving should have been cause enough
for surprise, or that hidden beneath

patterned folds of wrap, within
a box large as any man's bewilderment,

waited some unknown thing, purchased
after long labor, How undeserved,

that unreciprocated moment,
when all the twisted paths

they'd walked together and alone,
seemed to brighten at the first tug

on the bow, the paper hinging out
like doors, the lid ready to come undone

as one stood there, still
too frightened to peer inside.

This is for my friend, T. K. I miss you. I wish you were still here. And most of all I wish I'd known that the last time you called me, you were saying good-bye. Because then I could have said thank you for taking the time to know me, for being my friend, for all the times you made me laugh, because you were so smart and funny and so completely authentic. You made me a better person. R.I.P.