Patti Masterman - My Friend

He sits somewhere reading something, relaxed;
I say his name once, twice, a little louder..
He looks up, nearly startled, then breaks into that smile,
His eyes crinkling up with the long habit of perpetual kindness.

He quotes a verse from a poem, dead-pan,
I quote the next line, and so we go on-
Ambling down far promontories of time,
Two nimble children in search of a rhyme.

And he becomes Shakespeare and Byron and Shelley,
I become Dickinson, Teasdale and Lowell,
We go up the highest, sail down on thin air,
Not one bit worried if there's nothing below.

'Ah, parting's such sweet sorrow, ' I say, with half a turn.
'Pray, then, do not go gentle, for old age should burn'-
' And if thou wilt, remember, and if thou wilt, forget'
And happily, we tarried- for time had not won, yet.

Patti Masterman

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/my-friend-76/