Old Colleague

Another interesting prompt today, taken from the poety Betsy Sholl.

…write a poem in which you first recall someone you used to know closely but are no longer in touch with, then a job you used to have but no longer do, and then a piece of art that you saw once and that has stuck with you over time. Finally, close the poem with an unanswerable question.

For this poem I chose to write about a recent work colleague. I didn’t really know them ‘closely’, but we both started the job togther and mostly worked as a team. Anyway, it was one of those kinds of relationships that are highly contextual. Once the context shifts, you really have nothing in common any more and drift apart. That doesn’t mean, however, that the relationship or the time spent together wasn’t meaningful. A nice thing about writing a ‘poem-a-day’ is that you get to document these little feelings or impluses that are so diffuclt (or just too ‘small’) to capture in some kind of prose format, like a diary. I really appreciate that aspect of the challenge (and hopefully my future-self will too).

We were a team
A formidable pair
Walking the aisles
of the data hall

I read a Lispector story
In remembrance of you
She was from Brazil too

You're back there now
or so I've heard
Will we ever go for that pint?