AIDS Quilt 10 a poem for Terry

NOT TO BE UNSEEN (in memoriam Terry R> "I shan't come to Pride again, you said last year I saw too many faces that weren't there. Too many memories. I don't want to have to cope with them again this year." I thought of that as I put off the final layers of my mourning - making the decision: IT IS DONE. What is past is past. now and forever. Life shall go on. There will be joy again. Now your face is one of that company - no longer there. but NOT to unseen, no forgotten multitude, (never forgettable) not while fingers to count upon endure (yearning for one more caress), lips to tell (aching for another kiss), minds to remember (needing constantly to rehearse the past). Candles in the wind, fabric on the breeze. angry voices slicing evening air, such insubstantial memorials will say what carved stone cannot. We insist on the celebration of your lives - we, you and us, will no longer go unmarked. Your absent voices will so swell our cries that no one can say they have not seen or heard.