An Alchemy of Words

the Third: for Kevin

"the Third: for Kevin"

Old friend,

I have hated you in the past.

In the past I've despised you

and shunned you, and you me.

We were friends, together

but not eternally apart

and it is here,

in the midst of a new world,

the "Third" World,

that I find I can love you

all over again,

that we can talk and I'm surprised

(though I shouldn't be)

that we say the same things,

use the same words,

mean the same things

like we always

but never quite have

and when our eyes

meet, we can laugh

at ourselves in each other

without regrets for the years of proximity

so far apart.

I've seen you through pains

and you've seen me through the

same and we speak of our separate paths,

accept that they're different

but that each is as noble

as our own,

parallel,

and we talk of cynicism

and the call of hope

and here we are

in the "Third" World,

two poets, two writers, two friends,

wrinkled and grey with age not our own,

as different as our fathers

yet as similar

as ourselves

while we meld and multiply

skepticism and joy

not into one being

but into two,

and not as two vines intertwined

but as two people

who have always known each other

from separate sides of the world,

the same world,

the "First" World,

able to find ourselves and each other

in the Third.