I’ve been sitting quietly working listening to the painfully exquisite poetry of Rodriguez and I’m suddenly reminded of my brother, who’s been gone for longer than he was on this earth.
While the rain drank champagne.
How many times can you wake up in this comic book and plant flowers?
Pink Floyd was one of his favourite bands and he would link up his little tape recorder (it was that long ago) to his acoustic guitar so it sounded a little bit electric and he could record himself. I still have a recording of him singing ‘wish you were here’. I adore Pink Floyds music, but to this day I can’t listen to it. He ruined it for me, my brother. I can’t hear a single note without tears gathering out of nowhere. Or perhaps not out of nowhere, perhaps it’s from the piece of me that went with him when he dove off that cliff, learning to fly.
I set sail in a tear drop.
I still sometimes see him in my peripheral vision – a fleeting memory of the shape of him, the way he stood, cocky and gangly. I remember his insane laugh and his intense concentration when playing his guitar. His scruffy untied boots and perfectly combed hair. His smile, so like mine and his brain, from some other world.
That piece of me will forever be gone, but if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have moments like these when tears mingle with smiles and soft laughs at his mad sense of humour, his music, his brilliance. Crazy diamond.
I miss him still, my brother. He was a poet too.
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