BFF
(for Rex, 40 odd years and still not out)
I think I was seventeen when I first
ran across you, a compact young man
that adjudicated a debate I was in.
The second time was in the church hall,
readying to go away for the weekend,
and I said to you that evening,
like a lover whispering nothings
to the desire of his heart,
I think we’ll be good friends for a long time,
and you replied, let’s just see what happens,
with that circumspection that I came to appreciate
you offer me through all the years.
Ah, when you hear of this poem
the memories are a river, A newsreel
of high points and low,
you standing in front of my revving car,
my giant coat, your tiny clip-on koala,
friends falling through the ceiling in the dim past.
Living on the lounge-room floor of a friend’s parents place in Victoria.
Your father occasionally remind me I have a home to go to.
My father enslaving us to clean the garage.
Me throwing up on the first day of every holiday
and you playing nurse to my endless migraines.
You repeatedly almost killing yourself to get "the photo".
Road trips/Weddings/ Christenings/ Funerals.
Shared books/ records/ thoughts/dreams that become memories.
Money that never mattered,
regrets. Complaining about our elders,
now we’ve become them.
Life.
Now your red hair is completely grey
and my once blonde hair is brown with silver streaks
and we have a million victories and failures,
uncountable screw ups and illuminated moments,
in our rather stormy wake.
But our successes have been sweeter shared
and our “shoulda”, “woulda” and “couldas”
are not quite so bitter in our shared room
of secret remembrances that we’ve kept
alone together through all the slowly marching decades.
So, onward now, in the final quarter,
and thankyou, mate, for being retrospectively
my Best Friend Forever.
I have to thank Rex for adding to the memories and enriching this poem.
