poem for jpk - the shattered mirror
TRIBUTE by jason brown, editor, avaiki nius agency It was, as promised, a small and simple ceremony. Gathered around an empty grave, tombstone in place, friends of the Couraud family, about 20 in all. "This is the time he was ..." The mother of Jean-Pascal Couraud pauses, searching her French memory for the right word in English. Kidnapped? "Yes, kidnapped," agrees his mother, stepping across the syllables carefully, like a goat on a mountain, fearful not of the plunge, but of forgetting to be careful. "... the time he was kidnapped at this very hour, exactly ten years ago." She peers upwards as she speaks, a small women for such enormous memories, shadows of frangipani falling across her shoulders, children surfing on even smaller waves in the background. As happens so often in all our lives, she begins to say more but is distracted by a comforting hand. Did he surf here too? JPK's brother glances across his brother's empty grave, past other tombs