Sunday, March 20, 2022

Susan M. Schultz : Being in Kind, im Matthew Henriksen

 

 

 

 

Accidental wit-
ness  you turn the tv on
Woman sobs in Kyiv
 

Accident is still
intent  I watch as she leans
Over a bloody
 

Sheet  world goes on not
Like Brueghel but worse  no one
Was flying  they just
 

Died  Not quantity
But quality of life wrote
Marcus Aurelius
 

Matters  after-lives
Of conversation   I was
Happy he’d found love
 

Though I only knew
Him on Facebook, once chatted
At American
 

Cannery  Brooklyn
This too is real  this friendship
Over internet
 

(Not Antoinette no)
See my cousin's goodness through
Smudge, portrait taken
 

To find the distance
In her presence on my screen
So like my father

It’s all about kind-
ness Matt says  “kindness kindness
Kindness”  turns to leave
 

Stage  then exits
Two days ago   his wife posts
At Zelenskyy’s age
 

44  Aaron’s
Number  like a brother or
The guy who leaps out
 

Of a cake in Cubs’
Uniform in Kyiv   laughter
Prophetic balm or
 

Pathetic in both
Senses  sad and with feeling
Can’t make a story
 

Out of pain  can’t make
Pain for sake of story  so
You invent new forms
 

Call them recovery
Sobriety   a daughter’s
Love to bind you to
 

That spot on our stage
You leave again  as we note
Our shocked ironies
 

“This may be the last
Time you see me alive,” he
Said. “Drop name into
 

Empty bucket, when
I’m gone, I will hear it in
The ringing of a bell.”

 

 

Note: the end of the last quotation is from Matt Hendriksen’s “Another Coda,” published in Brooklyn Rail, March 2019. The first part is from Zelenskyy. Other material from Matt's Ted Talk in Fayetteville, several years ago, as well as memories that only now seem linked to me.

 

 

 

 

Susan M. Schultz was founding editor of Tinfish Press. Her books include I Want to Write an Honest Sentence (2019) and the forthcoming Meditations 2019-20 from Talisman.