I first saw Marvin Bell sometime in 1994, I think.

I was broke and a college student and thus what I did for fun was go to see the free readings and lectures that happened almost every week. I saw a lot of cool people that way. Adrienne Rich, for instance. And Jane Miller, who inspired my then-boyfriend to start writing the poetry I had been telling him he could write.

And Marvin Bell, who at that point was writing the second Book of the Dead Man.

The Dead Man poems are told from the point of view of the Dead Man, who is alive and dead at the same time. Each line is a complete sentence, no more, no less, and each poem is broken into two parts. Marvin Bell was teaching at the Workshop at that point, I think, so he was a reasonably regular reader, but I only managed to see him the once.

Eight years later, I saw him again, half a continent and about three lifetimes removed from that college student I was. I never forgot about the Dead Man. And he was as good as the first time I saw him, the confident voice, the muted yet approachable stage presence. He breaks in the middle of his poems to laugh at a joke or explain something.

And most of all, he doesn't take himself too seriously.

I've wanted to be Marvin Bell when I grew up. His was the voice I've striven for; the poetry where the words shine and not the theatrics. I am not a performer; but maybe, just maybe, my words can speak quietly for themselves.

I am so very glad that Chris had as good a time as he did, that he enjoyed it as much as I did. I love to share these things with people.

To Dorothy

You are not beautiful, exactly.
You are beautiful, inexactly.
You let a weed grow by the mulberry
and a mulberry grow by the house.
So close, in the personal quiet
of a windy night, it brushes the wall
and sweeps away the day till we sleep.

A child said it, and it seemed true:
"Things that are lost are all equal."
But it isn't true. If I lost you,
the air wouldn't move, nor the tree grow.
Someone would pull the weed, my flower.
The quiet wouldn't be yours. If I lost you,
I'd have to ask the grass to let me sleep.

—Marvin Bell

So Chris is gone for a few days, and the silence is strange. I'm still uncertain of this, because of all of the tedious work I have to do to get to the place where he has gone without effort, the emotional rearrangement and learning tolerance of things I swore I'd never put up with again.

But I do know I miss him already.

I am, however, going to be watching The Pillow Book on Friday. And sleeping in on Saturday, maybe.

And waiting for Monday. As strange and sad as that sounds to myself.

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