Andrea Gibson

Thank you

July 14, 2025

On the day you died

I awoke before the sun. 
I made coffee in the dark. 
I carefully built a kitchen table
in a dim lamp's light.
I moved, softly, 
carefully,
hoping power tools 
wouldn't awaken the neighbors below. 
I imagined my table, as I built it. 
I imagined my table collecting 
the sunrise, dawn pouring in through the windows. 
I imagined my coffee, bathed
in morning light. 
I built my kitchen table;
the sun rose behind clouds, 
and my kitchen table 
collected no pools of gold. 

I sipped my coffee in the hazy, gray dawn. 
I thought about how fine my hair looked, 
yesterday, after jumping into the Mad River's icy blue-green waters; how it dried like silver wheat fields in the Vermont sun.
I thought about a line from a poem you had written. 
I thought about a picture that is floating around in the world; me and some woman, 
her arm around my back, 
her head resting on my shoulder. 
She's smiling. My hand is on her waist. 
She's smiling, head resting on my shoulder. 
What a strange photograph. 
What a strange place this is. 

I thought about how you sold out the Academy of Music Theatre.
I was there. I was with friends. 
We listened to your voice, speaking 
poetry into our lives. 
We listened. 
Then we cheered. 
The clouds disappeared. 
The sun shone, dazzling 
off the old hardwood floors. 
This place used to be a school. 
I wonder if any poets learned to read and write here. 
Did they have lines running through their heads, watching sunlight hit these same old wooden floors?
I wonder
who will write the poetry now that you are gone from this strange Earth?
I wonder 
will anybody ever again
know about the poetry and the hums.