On Seeing an Old, Old Friend as One Plague Ebbs and Another Progresses

He came to the restaurant
with his 36-year-old daughter
who I said looked radiant
in her first-time pregnancy.

We were eating outside
that rare summer day that
smelled more of heaven
than earth and my wife
and I had got there first.

So I had prepared myself
for meeting my friend
of half a century after
almost two years and
two major operations
on his part (a triple
by-pass and prostate
cancer as he neared
the ninth decade--
I almost wondered
if he was showing off,
a Superman of old age).

Still, my heart creaked
a bit when I saw old Gus
and young Kate coming
to our table: he was smaller,
slower, less exact in stature
and speaking and I had to
strain to hear him even
though he sat close to me
but none of that mattered
for a miracle happened --
the subtle but resolute
miracle found in the
bones of liking, the bones
of friendship and the
unbreakable bones of love
as all those months since
two old men last hugged
had vanished as though
we had dreamt that lost
time and now we were
once again awake…