Alive

He taught me for the year nearly before his life ended, and after his death, for five years, he taught me. I read him more than I had, I thought of him more in reflection to make up for the time with him I spent, in living; and then some. I developed more of myself in this thought, to speed up myself, to catch a bus or something that had arrived or to have begun to start arriving after I met him, and it was always in reach, always just out of sight after he had gone. I listened to him. He read his poetry, it had been on a recorded album done in studio. There was that one with jazz collaboration, he gave me that time, just, without any prompting, he had made a copy, Xeroxed its CD cover, stapled the ends of paper for a jewel case. He said, "You'll like this," or something like that. Today, I heard his voice again, just like in that class of ours, trailing in, trailing out, going on and on like he was always bound to do, etc., etc. On an iPod, I had uploaded his lectures, an innumerous recorded list of them, and turned one on, and I haven't been so happy for days. No, maybe not for years, since he died.