There are the unpredictable
Having their own integrity
adjacent to the common good,
Arrived at by a path apart
Where the footsteps remain clear
only have you made them
The common certainties
Lean against each other
adjusting to small pressures
Knowing without having to say
How their own identity
belongs inside the rolling tide
Cliff came separately
On the path less clear
brambled up and grassy down
To where we all had come
Our identities invested in each other
unsurprised at what we expected
We did not expect Cliff
The insurance claims adjuster
capably credentialed
Who knew the academic rules
And who sold pot or peddled blarney
on the hill or down in town
Rough and scruffy Cliff English
Came to town a separate road
knowing what we knew another path
And probably to his chagrin
We claimed him as our own
We were not we without him
—Conrad Røyksund, 2015
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