Eighteen Cafés

- for Riche du Plessis – writer & philosopher of Nowra

I wait this week in one of our mutual daytime haunts; then,

Responding to an outline - into my sight’s edge a new figure comes

Into this noisy room ? With its espresso noise, and hard floors in resonance

At moving feet, and cups and chairs, and rustling conversation.

Responding for no reason, perhaps just a hope to see you stop

For a quick lunch – your hour might be constrained by work – but always

Allowing time for talk; a warming smile, a joke, a curse on Kevin Rudd,

For his latest failure in your unrequited hope, another spurned conviction.

But this new outline as I turn in greeting, is not yours: and of course

Reminded of the hard fact of our loss six months ago, I wonder at the tricks

Played by my mind, even as my heart argues with the burden of its knowledge;

And even now as I sometimes wonder at the source of Mr Rudd’s anathema to you ?

This regional town we sometimes shared, and which became your final home

Boasts Eighteen Cafés – and you probably knew that ! Although between us just

A few gained regular place in our accidenting paths of meeting and debate:

Damarrose, Green Olive, Socrates Table, River Deli, Tea Club - Oh La La! for lunch.

In each we’d pass the time in argued analyses of our world – or worlds.

In each, contending with espresso sounds, we’d sometimes find consensus

- but then as often, some points on which to clash and never find shared views;

Yet reaching comfort within our shared dialectic. Respecting the other’s view.

Our fields of mutual interest, of argued issue, varied – yet were numerous

And often once again refreshed, resumed like a bone for two old dogs, our bone.

Last year you found a project on which we worked together – not poetic, but civic

In the hope that fresh thought might inject design ideas, some novelty in this town.

Off into the internet it went in both our names, though you’d by then departed;

And later came a brief and formulaic reply from Council. Did they read it ?

Who can know – the Main Thing was, it was sent. Another small shared gesture

Between us – like a mutual book launch, a nascent poetry gathering and festival.

People reach us, their affections make ripples in our lives, and the minds of others;

Like a shared love of words. But such ripples survive, and move us yet.

© Geoff Bolton 2011