This is not about anyone you might know. It is a private tribute.

I never knew you well
Or as well as perhaps I ought
Though we were colleagues
Your friendship was not one I sought

Still, I respected you
That you always showed care for your staff
That you were happy to join in
And to share a drink and a laugh.

We all came to realise
The pressures you tried, so hard, to hide
That you took refuge in a bottle's tranquillity
A calm that your shaking hands belied.

And when you could not continue
We said that we would miss your kind and gentle way
And you told us grand stories and amazing plans
Of how you would fill up every day.

We promised to keep in touch
With that fluid oath that barely binds when colleagues part
And we did not see each other again
And I take that as a failing on my part.

At the end, as upon the floor you lay,
Were you happy or in the depths of some despair?
What were you thinking on that last day
As your soul ascended the celestial stair?

Now it's time to say goodbye again
And this time, it is one that will be sung.
Just part of a crowd, come to say farewell
To a troubled life, whose thread was snipped too young.




Penned by my hand on the 8th of Phaestian, in the year 399 AF.