by Mark Tarallo, AIW Vice President
As soon as the news came, Facebook starting buzzing away with tributes to Holden, Esme, and Bananafish. A not-so-perfect day of mourning for half the readers of the world, myself included. Rest in Peace, J.D. Salinger.
A day later, when Louis Auchincloss died, I felt grateful that I had spent some time (as a reader) in his Upper East Side world, with its elegance and moral compromise.
A few weeks ago, I received an email from a friend about another writer’s passing, the poet Rachel Wetzsteon. Although I didn’t know her — she was a friend of a friend — the news seemed especially tragic given her age, 42.
My friend sent me the link to the New York Times obituary, and sure enough it included one of the poems, “Sakura Park,” the ending of which I will always remember.
Sakura Park, by Rachel Wetzsteon
The park admits the wind,
the petals lift and scatter
like versions of myself I was on the verge
of becoming; and ten years on
and ten blocks down I still can’t tell
whether this dispersal resembles
a fist unclenching or waving goodbye.
>> Continue reading the poem
The writer passes, the words live on.
***
Mark Tarallo is vice-president of AIW and a Washington-based writer. His fiction and poetry have been published in a range of journals, most recently in the fiction anthology Cold Shoulders. His awards include an Artist Fellowship Award for fiction writing from the D.C. Commission on Arts and Humanities, and the Washington Writing Prize in Short Fiction.
