Jake Aller Poet Elegy

Saudade For Friends I Have Lost

Saudade for friends I have lost

as I get older
I lose more people
every year

more people I knew
have died moving on 
and I mourn their lost friendship

wished I had been 
a better friend for them
and knew them better

and with the corona virus
spreading around the world
I will lose so many more

in the coming year
as the virus spreads
its malignancy far and wide

I lost my father due to cancer in 1985
and my sister 
due to a freak illness in 2007

and my mother 
due to Alzheimer’s in 2005
and my father-in-law as well in 2007

Demel Tucker 
high school debate teammate
dead of HIV in 1995

Julian Bartley and his son
died in a terrorist bombing
in Nairobi in 1998

Jon Weber college roommate
dead due to prostate cancer 
in 2000

Paul Simon  friend from the visa line
dropped dead of a heart attack
in 2004

Ted Halstead
one of my best bosses
died of heart attack in 2007

Chris Richard 
one of my former bosses
from my days in Bangkok

dropped dead of a heart attack
shortly before we were due 
to have lunch in 2014


and so many others 
I have lost 
along the way

and soon there will be
so many more
as I get old in the corona era

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