‘He was the Shelley of his age and more.’ — Gerard Bellaart
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THE FOURTH YEAR (for Heathcote Williams) It should be news that today marks Your fourth Year of departure. For when society loses signals, Or signposts such as yours, the days warp Folding in on themselves, without the words To unravel the mystery of each moment Or the all too blatant lies behind doors, And the truth that we are poorer without The richness and way you delivered, As you sat In your dotage, fountain pen Pouring futures onto the calligraphied page With such ease, That every political pose And every social Shift achieved scansion, rhyming under you, the verse surgeon whose equal vision and zeal cured disease. Four years ago on this day, you passed into the page your work fashioned with All of the lost, last abandon that jackdawed Away above youth. I knew you older, of course but for those who loved and lived with you longer May these annual stokings stir embers that see your spirit rise. We seek proof that you ever departed at all. For death uses dust to edit the life and work you left with us. In this, your eightieth year we’re still Reading and readying too what you write. So grief composes within as memory Makes us all poets. And so I write for you, H, As always small stanzas of love. Words as light. David Erdos July 1st 2021
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