peripathetic

Alan Maxwell
A friend of mine, who I met during my final year of university in Aberdeen, died in the last couple of days.

I first met Alan on a sunny afternoon in 1999. He was a guy who had approached the befriending service we'd set up in the LGB society in Aberdeen only at the start of that year, and I'd arranged to be the person from the society who was to meet him. I was therefore the first person he came out to. He stepped half-warily into my flat, wearing the same friendly smile he always wore, giving me a firm handshake and sitting down with someone he didn't know, about to say a lot of things which had been mulling around his head - for the first time.

During the next few months, Alan became more self-confident, and his easy conversation with total strangers deepened into frendship with many of them. He shared a bond with my flatmate Ross, grew close to my friend Andy for a time, and became lasting friends with Patrick and Anita, friends the goodness of which nobody could ever expect. The closeness deepened, and Alan's acceptance grew strong and, characteristically for him, quiet and assured.

When we graduated in 2000, I lost contact with Alan. He had his first relationship during the last year, something which I'm sure would have brought the world to his door in a kaleidoscope of colour and variety which he'd know he'd never seen before. Maybe it was to much for him. I don't know. But a few days ago, Alan quietly left his house in Edinburgh, drove his jeep out into the countryside, and died, faithful to the end to a nature which urged him not to rock the boat with anyone.

I wish he'd stood up and wavered. I will miss him.


Birdsong
'Where am I?' Consulting the Modern School Atlas
You underline Dalkey in Ireland, in Scotland Barrhead.
'What day is it?' Outside the home, house-sparrows
With precision tweetle and wheep under the eaves.

Although you forget their names, you hear the birds
In your own accent, the dawn chitter, evening chirl,
The woodpigeon's rooketty-coo and curdoo. 'Who
Am I? Where am I?' is what a bird might sing.

*

Sometimes the quilts were white for weddings, the design
Made up of stitches and the shadows cast by stitches.
And the quilts for funerals? How do you sew the night?

- Michael Longley