Friday, June 11, 2021
June 11, 2021. I just learned of Carter's passing. A year and a half later. How can the distant past catch up with such fresh grief? Where did life go? And death be so long gone.
Carter was my friend. We met in Mrs. Mook's art class our senior year in high school. After graduation we corresponded. We exchanged poetry and short stories. I bought some of his poems. He bought some of my paper dolls. Though over the years the crossings of our paths stretched further apart... somehow, there was still a heart connection. We would still come back like a familiar comet circling the earth a half century later. And now? No. Not a comet. A super nova burning brightly and then... gone...
The obituary says nothing of Carter the man. Nothing of his wit. Nothing of his gifts. I wish to leave this page with a poem written by him in 1989, so expressly appropriate now. It is from his booklet entitled: Coffee in Black.
A Traveler's Prayer
by Carter H. Kershaw
There's a fiery comet in the way,
I pray my ship soar,
That I go by with just a singe of oar.
There's a ten horn beast in the way,
I pray my ship fly,
That I pass by in the sky.
There's a river of blood in the way,
I pray my ship fire spit,
That I roar and jump it.
It's never been a bad road,
Just a little fast on the ice,
I pray we're together soon, love,
By God, angel and ship's device.
