Reprise

Friendship walked right onto centre stage
no waiting in the dressing room
or lurk of shadows, hoping to be invited.
It began like Beethoven’s fifth, instantly, confidently
and certain of posterity.
The octaves of the continuum
flippancy and profundity
philosophy and piss taking
intimacy and out loud shallowness.

Five years – a lifetime in the mid 20s
different hemispheres
time zones
countries
but always returning to the same fixed point
as a compass to North.

Then to fixed abode
in marriage
we would see more of each other, for sure.
Wrong. Less is the new more. Much less.
Partly circumstances and partly disapproval: wife of friend.
A decade half of polite insignificance
until
that most suburban of departures someone running off with someone you –
she with charismatic lover.

The DNA of mateship
stored, coiled, sequestered
springing life to Jurassic Park dimensions
back to Beethoven and confidence
back on centre stage
magical and uplifting – like the cat in the hat
and like that literary feline it came back.