The Woman Who Knew All Too Well

(for Joan Valentina)

 

 

That her health was now a soldier

astride a battlefield,

too wounded to correspond.

That her body was in a lover’s quarrel

with an impervious world.

That the simple act of walking

was to drag an anchor

across unforgiving ground.

That each breath she took

was a flower devoid 

of its ambrosial scent.

 

And so

this woman who knew all too well

has now left all that knowing behind

 with us.

Though my life only brushed hers;

a moth grazing a bulb ablaze with light,

her absence has surreptitiously gnawed a hole

in the fabric of our world.

Aside from my own lackadaisical interest

in the lives of others,

my mind no match 

for her uncanny radar,

few could hold a candle

to the breadth

of Joan’s kindled exuberance.

 

You wouldn’t be wrong to say

Joan knew a thing or two

about everything and everyone,

as if peering room by room through

a spy glass made for 

drawing down the stars.

 

I could see her apartment window from mine

and now and then I’d glance

across and notice her scrolling the internet,

her posture like a question mark,

her lamp casting its theatrical spot

as if she were the sole star

in a now =bare bones production of her life.

So it was that a vacant light caught my eye

having been on night and day for weeks,

with her, uncharacteristically

missing at the controls.

 

I wondered if she were in hospital

knowing she would know if it were

the other way around.

I suddenly had the uneasy feeling

I might never see her again.

 

Though she was never

one to withdraw from the world,

her Lupis had lately gotten the best of her.

Even so, she would still find ways to stay

on top of any and all goings on.

Nothing could extinguish her desire to know.

Or at least I thought.

 

Now I wonder,

where has all that knowing gone?

 

A friend or loved one’s death 

tilts the mind’s tender machinery.

It simply does not compute

for someone to be suddenly and irrevocably erased!

Not someone as vivid as Joan!

An habitual problem solver,

her resourcefulness was Emersonian.

All things being in a ceaseless flow of change,

Being the subject of constant metamorphosis.

She prided herself on a dauntless self-sufficiency.

 

It’s true I once described her as

tilting every room she entered

so that all roads led to her.

At a party, she’d speak

without pause on any subject

as if from the axis of her

own personal wheel of fortune,

with the inarguable voice

of lived experience.

Nothing was off limits.

The food she cooked.

The parts she played.

The clothes she wore.

The people she helped.

The stories she shared.

The problems she solved.

The paths she took.

 

Nothing escaped

her powers of observation.

She, the mystery solver.

She, the truth decoder.

She, the gossip monger.

She, the storyteller.

She, the advice provider.

She, the mentor of

finessing every room

she entered.

 

As I write this on the morning after her passing,

The Queen of Outer Space

is playing on TCM behind me

and an unlikely thought presents itself:

How much world must we

hold inside ourselves

so as not to fade away

when we are gone?

 

I remember the last story Joan shared with me.

It lasted the length of an entire meal.

A man had come into her life.

A wonderful man full of kindness,

a gentleman wanting to do for her.

Why was he lavishing so much affection on me?

She wondered at a loss aloud.

After all, she was no spring chicken. (Her words)

Didn’t he know every step tired her, 

that every breath was a chore.

Joan, I said, why not just let yourself be loved?

 

After that, our conversation dwindled into 

demolishing our decadent desserts.

 

I’d like to think LOVE had come for Joan,

as late as it was.

Love unplanned for, love unexpected.

Maybe this was the last thing 

she longed to know

all too well,

one final thrilling adventure

before moving on;

 a Love that eclipsed 

the most ravenous of minds.

 

Then again, 

maybe because she once said

I was her favorite poet,

I’m left too dumbfounded

to do her justice

with a single line.