On memory, fever, and the fear of what follows

26:1

That summer, Christopher fell ill.

26:2

The heat pressed down longer than usual,

and his breath came shallow.

26:3

The town spoke quietly then,

as if noise itself might finish what fever had begun.

26:4

I found myself remembering

things he had never written.

26:5

How he taught us to drive beetles from the field,

not with poison,

but with the planting of bitter herbs they would not cross.

26:6

How he said,

"Do not kill what you can redirect."

26:7

I remembered the irrigation channels,

cut by hand,

slowly,

so the water would learn the land.

26:8

He showed everyone how to dig them.

26:9

Including Myriam.

26:10

She loved that work,

though she loved other labors less.

26:11

Christopher never asked her to love all tasks.

26:12

Only to do them honestly.

26:13

As he lay resting,

people asked me for stories.

26:14

Not teachings.

26:15

Stories.

26:16

So I searched my memory deeply,

as one searches dry ground for water.

26:17

I told them what I could remember.

26:18

And worried how much had already been lost.

26:19

The doctors said the fever might break.

26:20

Or it might not.

26:21

And I feared not only his death,

but his absence.

26:22

For a man can die once,

but a town must live every day after.

26:23

I wondered who we would become

without the one who never told us what to be.