When we drove the narrow streets in Portree,
I thought I saw you turn in an alleyway,
then hurry down the steps to the harbour,
no hat on, carrying an umbrella. I assumed you left
a briefcase on a corner somewhere full of new poems
composed in another life. What, it’s been 41 years?
I’m sure you scrounged up some paper and pencils
and found a cloud on which to write. You’re gone,
but your voice and words live down here. We’re staying
two weeks on Skye on the sea of the Hebrides, with cliffs
and islands out the windows. The Black Cuillin mountains
in the distance have a degree of gray you would have loved.
Maybe you did when you were here. This is the final stay
on our trip, the rugged beauty slapping our eyes at every turn.
Like you, we needed this bare, slow life to remember
what is essential. History seeps out of every rock, cliff edge,
gliding down through the valleys into the streams, into the sea
like blood. But you know all that. I’m sitting here, watching
the tide recede, thinking about how much we take and give,
how much we lose and gain, how much we forget and then
remember. I remember you. Be well, Dick, wherever you are.

Born and raised on the third coast, Michigan, David James has published seven books and has had more than thirty of his one-act plays produced across the country.