Fighting Irony: entry

Sitting with Schloss
For Bert James Schloss, MD

I came for a prescription, Doc
I sat for nine years.
Listening was only part of our arrangement,
there were the soft suggestions
the quiet challenges, and yes,
stubborn silences.

In our last session you spoke of a poem
Sea Fever, by John Masefield
How it reminded you,
we can’t always explain our passions.
Sometimes we “must go down to the seas again,
to the lonely seas and the sky,”
Your seas and sky were selfless;
your passion was others.
You were our advocate our mentor our friend.
You provided for so many
those sails of safety,
that wind of compassion,
those echos of empathy.

From you I learned how to know someone
in spite of facts.
Facts that seem more important now
that you are gone.
I want more ways to describe you,
other than nouns, adjectives, slippery synonyms.
Words not devoid of meaning, but not enough either
to capture what you meant to me, to us.
How many lives did you save?
How many brains did you fix?
How many hearts did you stitch?
Impossible to quantify,
we only know now
what we always knew then,
that your heart was too full.

If we are so lucky
to see you on the Other Side,
I know there will be a comfortable chair
a dog, or five, at your feet
coffee’s warm!
a line for days
to sit with Schloss.