Let faded flags fly away,
Chased by gods who arrive today. 
Let workers weave threads of gold,
To adorn new flags, newly-born.
Let’s revisit Agrippina’s death,
History may have deceived itself. 

My poem (posted above), titled "What has Changed? In Memory of W.H. Auden," first took form on my walk to work and, by the time I arrived at work, read, in its entirety, as follows:

"A poet’s affirming flame,
Burns brightest when left alone,
But all flames flicker as the sun descends, 
Until the next poet’s sun rekindles the flame again."

Setting aside the reality that a poem is never finished insofar as the poet retains a perpetual tinkerer's license, the final poem (once again, posted above) seems to me to retain the essence of the above sketch. 

“O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?”  W.B. Yeats

Emerging from the rhetorical swamp of the latest string of tweets, one must ask: how can we know the message from the messenger?  How can we credit policy proposals that emerge from self-serving vulgarities of both speech and deed?  The proponent and the proposal are fused and deceit and distrust ride high.

In Memoriam: Joan Roll

Good Afternoon:

For reasons too personal to express, and too obvious to require expression, I am privileged and honored to have an opportunity to offer a few observations, particularly to Emily and Katherine, for whom the depth of Joan’s love cannot be measured.

I generally prefer not to speak from notes, which invariably suppress my spontaneity. But there is nothing spontaneous in my remarks. Upon learning of Joan’s death, I meditated on Joan, on life and death, on having and on not having, on the meaning of meaning, and on the experience of being, being together, being apart, and simply being. My remarks might have taken other pathways into the life and influence of Joan – to dilate into focus, as it were, the core qualities of Joan that emerged through and from my meditations. What follows are irrepressible observations that would have informed any of the multitude.

As I absorbed the news of Joan’s death, I wished, in the conversations that one’s emotions have with one’s other emotions, for an opportunity to place my palm on Joan’s forehead, look at her and say “thank you; please rest; you have been marvelous – in countless ways; please just rest.” And, indeed, in this wish, I imagined this moment. For Joan was a dear friend; and my wish to have had that moment, and my imagination of that moment, were just that.

But I have started at the end, with my admiration, gratitude and friendship, when my intent is to start at the beginning, when Joan Arnold first introduced me to Joan. This would have been in 2002.

Most of us (myself included) who are not tax lawyers are daunted by tax lawyers – because of their intelligence; the complexity of tax law; and the metaphorical hieroglyphics of tax vocabulary. Thus, when Joan Arnold emphasized that the tax lawyer to whom she would introduce me was especially bright, a feeling of unease, intimidation, began to arise, reflexively, if you will.

Joan Arnold was correct: Joan had a rare ability to cut to the heart of a complicated matter, isolate and frame the key issues, and present alternative solutions that captured, creatively and economically (meaning, precisely), client objectives. From 2002 onward, Joan and I were a team. And the respect that Joan engendered, and the reassurance that that she provided, quickly displaced that initial reflexive unease and intimidation.

I’ll always appreciate that Joan Arnold, Lisa Petkun and the entire Pepper Tax Department gave Joan a wide-berth to help me think through, and work through, areas outside of tax – year after year, and for well over a decade. For Joan was a lawyer and counselor who transcended conventional boundaries that we call specialties.

And, yet, to remark on Joan’s keen intelligence is the easiest part of any description of Joan. And probably the least illuminating, because her intelligence was obvious to us all. The harder part is to describe Joan’s qualities, especially those not easy to replicate, in a way that recognizes that the revelatory value of the description may hint at qualities but, ultimately, depends on your imagination to illuminate and foster appreciation of the dimensions and durability, to fathom the depth of the qualities.

So I’ll take one, the one that has long been obvious to me, the quality that characterized all aspects of Joan, taken in full, the one that sets a standard for a life-long aspiration: the capacity for, and the habitual acts of, caring.

There are at least two traditional senses to the term “Caring.” We speak of a parent caring for a child; a physician caring for a patient; a teacher caring about the development of students. We also use care as a synonym for “concern” or “relevance”, which is to say, I care about finding the right answer; or I care about the quality of my work; or I care about making a positive difference to my family and friends. In each of these two senses, Joan “cared.”

She cared for, and about, her friends and colleagues; she cared for, and about, her clients; she loved deeply her family: Emily, Katherine and Tim were a constant presence within Joan. She also thought deeply about a meaningful life, a life that finds value through tolerance and understanding for, and of, others, their strengths and weaknesses, their moments of satisfaction and disappointment, their ambitions and fears, their dreams. And the two sense of “caring” now begin to merge into one, with Joan’s caring running through it, for Joan’s care for, and of, friends and colleagues; care for, and of, clients; love for, and of, family were never separate or independent from Joan’s care to live a virtuous life sustained through introspection, and fortified through courage, with her cares made manifest in her respect of, and for, the essential dignity of each person with whom she dealt. Indeed, if one recognizes Joan’s respect for, her embrace of, the dignity of each person with whom she dealt, then, when one couples this quality with Joan’s keen intellect, one’s imagination begins to reveal why meditation on Joan inspires, challenges and guides.

Note that I speak now in the present tense, for the present tense get closer to the bone, closer to what I mean to say. Joan is no longer physically with us but she remains alive in my imagination, an imagination that recalls daily discourse, nods, smiles; sighs and deep breaths; an imagination that recalls Joan answering her phone (with a lilt and calm as she would say “Joan Roll”) and patiently, confidently, answering question followed by question. And she remains a vivid presence within me: a composite of values and talents that I will draw upon with the comfort of knowing that the composite will not wither with time or dwindle through use. The composite of values and talents that are the essence of Joan, the essential Joan, are as they were, and the composite will endure through our individual memories: our personal and shared collections, and re-collections, of Joan.

Joan: may you rest in peace.