EULOGY

 For Michael Byrne...

I imagined I'd tracked you down

to one of those hellish concentration camps

in Hitler's nineteen-forties Germany. There,

in Nazi uniform, you stood observing

the mass genocide, your expression almost ecstatic.

Ice blue eyes, clear as the spring sky,

would perhaps meet mine. What then?

Would my blonde hair and pale complexion

save me from the inconceivable horror

inflicted upon my non Aryan contemporaries?

I'd assumed you'd be as brutal and inhumane

in real life too and therefore intensely disliked you.

So convincing you were up there on the screen

that I'd accepted as authentic a persona

well rehearsed - but then something else

in your eyes sent shivers of an altogether

different kind down my spine.

I'd inadvertently caught you unawares

before you'd had time to slip

into your chameleonic public image.

And the discovery was intoxicating:

a clean slate with your face on -

a smile so unexpectedly warm

that it took my breath away,

initiating an inexplicable infatuation.

Tell me, does it really matter

that I'm unknown to you, because

isn't absence claimed to be the heart's inspiration?

Observing your every role

has been the perfect antidote

to the isolation of life in lockdown, 

vastly expanding my restricted world.

In the sleepless hours, I think of you

and search the darkness

for your face...😉