​POETRY  -  
"Unkind of you to go in early Spring,
  with everything else coming to life - - "
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In Memory of Susan Eastbrook *
by Dan Liberthson

Unkind of you to go in early Spring,
with everything else coming to life--
your sole unkindness in our thirty years
but then you seldom could say no 
to a polite or even brusque request
and so, I suppose, not to Death.
 
To inconvenience him or her or it
(you stickled for accuracy, always,
which befit an editor, or "editrix" as
you once wrote in a comical skit--
yet you valued wordplay and wit),
to request a reprieve, a second trip,
miss the deadline and delay the press
would be remiss, you'd have thought,
so dutifully you went when called,
dreaming—I hope a dream of bliss.
 
But it was way too damned soon. 
My heart does not accept
that yours no longer beats
and wants to stop in sympathy,
but that grand gesture you'd forbid
as sternly as inflated attribution--
enemy of your honest soul.
 
Ethical goals and aspirations 
you held more dear than win or lose
but you knew we all cheat
whether for love or fame or money
and so your rules, though firm,
were pragmatic: bend for the small
transgression to forestall the large
you might have said and I say too,
in part because you taught me to.
 
Your handwriting revealed you,
generous and artful but precise:
with it as a child you labeled folders
for Prince Valiant costumes clipped
from newsprint to clothe paper dolls
(yours and your sisters' too) 
and then, grown up, gently coaxed
bullheaded authors to respond
to reason—which your art
(the carrot, not the stick) 
most aptly represented.
 
You radiated warmth and care
but most dear were your smile
and your voice, itself a smile:
neither will leave me now.
So subtle too your face: 
a slight change of feature,
eyebrow lifted, forehead creased, lips pursed,
conveyed with editorial precision 
(no verbal qualifier needed)
the most complex of feelings--
perplexity, dismay, indecision.
 
And by a graceful gesture of the hands,
wordlessly you could express
resolution, gratitude, love. 
If you were saddened by someone's folly or
the inevitable downsliding of things,
your smile twisted lower on the left, 
partly held back not from anger but with wry
tolerance of some one or thing askew--
not welcome, but human, you knew.
 
For many years you were reserved
in our greetings and goodbyes,
careful not to be misunderstood, 
but toward the end that distance fell away
as if I'd earned your trust beyond a doubt.
In our last phone call you said 
"I love you Dan," not lightly but
with finality, as if overdue:
perhaps part of you guessed or knew
there might be no next time 
for what you needed me to hear.
 
Few have told me with such certainty 
that magical phrase—and though you have
forever left the room, 
this parting gift so richly voiced, this flame,
will warm me even as your absence chills,
all the time I have to live.

*  Author's Note:  “In Memory of Susan Eastwood” was published in
Morning and Begin Again (2012) by Dan Liberthson.
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​Dan Liberthson was born in Rochester, NY. He attended Northwestern University and SUNY at Buffalo (PhD, English), has retired from a career as a medical writer, and lives in San Francisco and Cottage Grove, OR. He has published five books of poetry and individual poems in many journals, including The Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, South Coast Poetry Journal, Elysian Fields Quarterly, and Chaminade Literary Review. Dan has also written The Bluejay Contrivance, a spy novel, and The Golden Spider, a young-adult fantasy novel. Currently Secretary of the Oregon Poetry Association, Dan took second place in the William Stafford Memorial Award Poetry Contest (2020) and in the Maine Poets Society Contest (2022).  
Other works in this issue:
Poetry:
​Tourist

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Vistas & Byways Review is the semiannual journal of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by members of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at San Francisco State University​.​
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