My mind's eye can not see him,
No voice echoes through gray hallways,
Our skin hardly met. Where is he?
Afterlife is our memory.

The least vestige in a beam of
Light is the foundation for a
Picture as vast as space and time.

Just a tinge wafts through corridors,
Of my mind, born on a breeze that
Wrings his essence from a stale whiff.

His house, his car, his every place
Surrounds me with each breath.
His books, his laugh, his everything,

Borne on memory frothed waves; his
Fusty, dry paged erudition,
Marbled with blue cigar smoke stories,

Mingled with the grease and spice of
Cajun feasts, lightly accented
By bitter, sweet sweat of his life’s

Work and play, wedded with acrid
Fish oil and sweet gun powder
That stuck to this sportsman tight as

The ever present ether and 
Alcohol, dental paste and clean
Steel that tell of much Autumn work.

Shrouding this and macerating
It is the desiccated yet
Weighty dust of his 96 years.

Now, I realize him; like the
August oak that withers in our
Youth. Only a fragrance remains,
But enough to capture his nature.