for Derek Kass
Ancestry.com says your surname comes
from Middle High German: kaese meaning cheese,
your predecessors cheesemakers, or some
served as food merchants—why you moved with ease
among folks, I guess. Rhineland dialect
offers Kas: a thicket of young oak trees
and, yes, you were an oak, strong and erect,
voice like a soft breeze through gentle oak leaves,
making one listen close each time you spoke.
Whenever you walked in the room I’d smile
and think, Here comes The Big Gentle. You broke
our hearts when you left. If you’d stayed a while
we could have loved you more. Yet somehow we
can grasp that fatal desire to be free.
Roger Armbrust
October 17, 2011
