“Don’t bother with friends,”
Always struck me as poor advice,
Which is why no one in their right mind
Ever gives it as such, instead reserving
Such sentiments for hard times,
When the peel of mortality
Is pulled back from our frail lives
And for a moment we do not wish
To see what the loss has meant,
But only wish to feel the loss itself.
Here is a remedy: make more than you can
Keep. And keep in mind their mind,
So that, days or years apart, you may
Produce the fruit of friendship in a thought,
Its candor and cadence, the head-back laugh
And twinkle, or the wrought wisdom welding
Truth to practice at an odd angle,
Which only your one, obscure, entangled
Friend could manage and no other.
Todd Anderson (Stuff of the Rind, Sand and Sail, The Reluctant Prophet) writes the newsletter Mirth to share a behind-the-scenes look at his writing process as well as to offer readers the first fruits of his poetry and reflections. He grew up in the forests of small-town Ontario, contending against nature in all its beauty and harshness. His training as a literary scholar of Latin and English literature inflects his love of poignant turns of phrase, but it is the influence of his family and their myriad adventures together that infuses his story-telling and poetry with its substance and power. Todd lives and writes in Ottawa with his wife and six children. If you are interested in supporting Todd’s work, please follow the links below to donate or buy his books.
Todd Edward Anderson 