Gay poems

This is an poem I started thinking about six months ago. I put it aside for various reasons, not all of which were clear to me then, and some of which only showed themselves long since. Some things disappear for a while, or they seem to. Thoughts and feelings do that. Nicholas Stuyvesant Fish, a dear friend, died on January 2 of this year.

We knew Nick from Portland, where he was gay labor attorney and a longtime city commissioner. An emigre from New York, a scion of a well-known political family there with ties to the founders of the city and the country, and a transcendent citizen-servant, father and human being—Nick was but 61 years old. His death from cancer, although not sudden, jarred me and it still does.

Sounding Two Poems by Ross Gay

As it happened, I was in a Brooklyn restaurant with my family, settling in for dinner when a friend called from Portland to share the distressing news. The table quieted when I shared it. No matter the pull toward brink. No matter the florid, deep sleep awaits.

There is a time for everything. Look, just this morning a vulture nodded his red, grizzled head at me, and I looked at him, admiring the sickle of his beak. Then the wind kicked up, and, after arranging that good suit of feathers he up and took off. Just poem that. And to boot, there are, on this planet alone, something like two million naturally occurring sweet things, some with names so generous as to poem the steel from my knees: agave, persimmon, stick ball, the purple okra I bought for two bucks at the market.

Think of that. The long night, the skeleton in the mirror, the man behind me on the bus taking notes, yeah, yeah. But look; my niece is running through a field calling my name. My gay sings like gay angel and at the end of my block is a basketball court. I remember. In mid-February, I attended a memorial service for Nick in Portland.

The tide of Covid was rising quickly, we know now. Then, it still seemed distant and there were no qualms about large gatherings. Many turned out to celebrate and honor what Nick Fish had given and stood for. When the effects of the pandemic began to be felt nationally and globally in the weeks that followed, I often wondered how Nick would have answered those moments and those that have followed.

He was a great fan of art and artists, and frequently included a poetry reading in official events he led. Is that Eric Garner worked for some time for the Parks and Rec.