Five years are nothing. In five
years we breathe, we wake up,
we shower and go to work, we
go about all the business of
living. We eat pancakes and
decide what kind of syrup to
pour. Pure maple from a tree
for me or nothing, but you
weren’t so picky. You said you
were our campy friend,
and always sounded a little
ashamed, as though being down
to earth and able to start a fire
were something bad. I never
got to square that with you. We
always just laughed, and I never
told you, in a way that you heard,
that I loved that you were campy.
I loved that you were a fire-starter,
a seer, an enormous voice. You
were so, so big. You were the full moon in a sky full of stars, gleaming on the rough Sound of all the lives around you. I think you still are. I see you, your hobbit feet all swimming in green in a pocket, just to the right of the moon, but close, in the know of all our outs and ins. You piss me off sometimes, grinning there where I can’t touch you, as though your hugs were unimportant. They mattered, you know. They made me a person who was wanted and that made me want to live. I don’t know if you knew that, but I guess you do now, five years later, since you passed between pages from the book we know here to another one, where you can see all the colors. I miss you. I’m sorry it hurt so much. First brother, adopted late, I love you a billion years more.