Here's to You

Here's to all the things you meant

To people who are not me,

To all the people who are yet to come,

To all those yet to know who you were.

/

'We can hear dead people sing'

Is what I am told they said

When they first heard the phonograph

At a world's fair long ago.

/

I don't know if that's true or

If I remember correctly. I am, often, wrong.

But I do know that we can do more

Than hear dead people sing, now.

/

We can hear them laugh, see them

smile, watch them walk, know them like we

can know every friend who we know in forty-

five minute intervals on a six by three inch screen.

/

I didn't know you. But I have heard those who did,

And have seen you laugh, seen you

smile. I was tired when I learned you died, the

Kind of tired that's the weight of someone else's grief.

/

So here's to you. May you rest. And

may you know that you brought something

to the world it was lacking, breathed life into

Someone who was dying. Here's to you.


Dedicated to Una Stubbs, 1937-2021. Una was a beloved actress, known for breathing new life into Mrs. Hudson and making the good landlady beloved to a new generation of fans. Rest in Peace.