I'm Adely Mone and this is The Slowdown.

One of the things that I love about poetry is that if we are lucky, poetry lives on long

past the writer.

We lose a poet at no matter what age and then we have the privilege of reading their

poems over and over for as long as we wish as a way to feel connected to that poet.

To hear their particular music, to see how their mind worked on the page, to not only see

their line breaks and syntax, but to feel their presence, to witness, once again, their

singular dwindé.

There are times after someone passes that their poems set about to do the good work

without them.

Poems are posted on social media and shared in emails and texts and those of us who are

friends or grateful readers are flooded with the complex memories poems provide.

And whether we like it or not, the poems change after the poet is no longer of the earth.

Lines are read with a heavier weight, a poem that might have felt innocuous or whimsical

suddenly transforms into a palace of deep meaning.

We look for the person and yet all we have left is the poem.

And let me admit that I'm so grateful for the poems, but dammit, I want the person

back too.

Today's poem is by one of those people I went back.

Matthew Henrichsen was a poet that I met in Brooklyn many years ago and we continued

our friendship thanks to our mutual dear friend Adam Clay.

Together, Adam and Matthew edited typo magazine for almost 20 years.

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