Encomium by Patrik Vander Velden

My sister Angie and her husband Jim were meant to sail their 2 boats together until they crossed to a different shore. Patrik Vander Velden who knew them during the last 3 years of their lives, and was one of the last people to see them before they died last January within days of each other, has written a tribute to mark the one year death anniversary of these two very special souls whose lives were so intertwined. As you read his poem, please remember these two very special and very incredible people.

ENCOMIUM

   Written by Patrik Vander Velden for James and Angela Cobb

James Cobb. Angela Lobo Cobb.

April 1950 - January 2018

Tall standing shadow for a body

broken like bones 

tossed from a dice shaker.

Ja, life was a battle for a strong

will with a warriors tough

skin, with brains logical, 

tactical, learning all wars

aren’t worth waging only

those worth risk of victory.

Calisthenics lifting books brought

muscle into his mind.

A thousand and one nights

of knowledge, basic

training for a scholar.

The laurel leaf, the pallium.

He being no Alexander it came to pass

that the Princess of India met him

in the middle of America.

Her elephant genuflected, she stepped

down from her palanquin, while

he offered his hand from

his wheel chair.

She listened to his proposal:

The Grand Tour of Europe, 

companionship, fidelity,

a burden, a boon.

In return she offered a dowry

of poetry, equality as a scholar, 

fidelity and food of the 

Indian Ocean.

Between Maiden Poetria and History Professor

born within days of each other

in the same month, 

same year, on separate continents 

was held a symbiosis of love.

Time is an itinerant, a wanderjahr

without a sundial. Shadows

measure length of those days

as moons wane and wax the sun

can not stop her eclipse.

Hannibal is always at the Gates

where the padlocks of 

paradise have rusted away.

From where music is wind

scratching stone into

words, come poets 

historians, lovers with

gravitas enough for

keeping their binary orbits.

Gravity held in equilibrium until

sunlight blinked, a shadow

inhaled deeply all the rosy

pink petals, while two

cinders fell

from pale fingers of Dawn