Grace Notes by Fred D’Aguiar

This pamphlet is about Grace – a very good friend of Fred D’Aguiar – who recently died.

First poem of the Pamphlet:

1

Laoš Janáček plays for you
as if his piano could be
what you would be like
brought back to life
in some shape other than
what we grew to know, love.

We miss you every day.
We wonder at all times
how you would view some
thing that happens without
you here with us to see it,
that is how we share it

with you as days line up
between your absence our
continued time moving on
toward the same fate that
took you from us,
left us scrambling

to keep up carrying on
with each note of Janáček
strung on your behalf
along keys of our spines
strings of our nerves,
chambers of our hearts.