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Joseph Anthony Buttigieg (1947–2019)
Now that you’re gone, Joe, without fuss, without hint of ceremony,
let me cast a few chosen words on the air, so that others
may know what kind of man you were, even if only sketchily –
your company was always a delight, to be looked forward to,
and your conversation witty, sharp, funny, elegant; your quick
intuitive vision saw directly through murk, into depths,
and wouldn’t be fooled or fazed into confusing the one
for the other. You pitched yourself against turbulent darknesses
to nurture and foster clarity; and your magnanimous
gentle heart played central role in your judgments, but without
sentimentality or fear, yet with humour and modesty;
a scholar-thinker, who loved literature and the unending
play of ideas and images across, into, and out of the mind
like sunlight striking and streaking over unclouded water
as if this light in-and-of the mind itself, gathering
and reflecting that of the entire phenomenal world,
could, would, and indeed will somehow penetrate and
influence motives of human behaviour for the better,
deepen dignity, grow hope, enrich the enquiring spirit,
and so transform the very best of human aspirations
into real presence, into this-now, into now-this, and all
its most intimate and infinitesimal holdings and flows
into goodness, τον καλόν, life worth living, life well lived.
Today, as my own heart ticks over and now and then makes
sudden small leaps in anticipation of oncoming spring,
an overwhelming sadness patrols the acres of my being.
Ah Joe, now you’re gone there’s a hole in the world that won’t
be sealed over so easily by this year’s remaining snows
or drained away by our melting and flooding rivers, while
still I’ll remember you and the rest of this unsung song.
Cambridge, January 28, February 5, February 15, 2019
Poetic Voices
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