And Who Might They Have Sent
A poem for Bert Witvoet
And who might they have sent,
Agnes Kramer-Hamstra, March 2020.
that holy trinity of a jazz trio
improvising with intent,
to carry you from this home to that?
No fluffy cloud, rose-tinted for you
or childish cherubs with useless little wings.
Was it more like ones with their boots on
this muddy March, and with a wheelbarrow
sturdy and sure, but with some padding
for that worn-fragile bony frame of yours?
And that mysterious journey, as they
hauled you over, with the barrow wheel
soft over the softening earth,
as others attended – this side and that side – sang you on your way.
Or, was it more like this: those ones with boots
showed up with their buckets and brushed
the grime away, with wide swaths of their soapy wet brooms,
so that you could finally see clear, see through
to come face to beloved face
that face that lit yours in all those
ways you are?
