Friends Passed

I wrote this poem while feeling somewhat sad at giving away a beautiful gift that a dear friend, Wambali Mkandawire, gave me. He was a musician who I was privileged to play with in a touring band back in 1984-5. He sadly passed away from Covid-19 in 2021. I never really used the hardwood, hand crafted back-scratcher, but I always valued it as a thoughtful gift for life in hot climates like Malawi, where Wambali was from. I had several small wooden gifts from him and I have kept others, but I concluded that this gift had done it’s job and it was time to send it on to a new owner. I gave it away in the generous spirit of my older-brother-example friend who gently taught me how to travel in this life – just by his example. I gave it away with sadness. Sadness at the loss of a friend. I am glad to have known you, Wambali.

The audio is kindly read by my Dearly Beloved, Tanya, who is reading over a Song of the Day that she recorded on her phone back on 5 June 2024. Incidentally, on the day she recorded it, she named this piece of music, amazingly appropriately “When We Remember”. She has many such pieces on her phone. When I asked her about reading the poem over a piece of music, she listened through a number of these and felt this one would work; it carries undertones of wistfulness and of something being lost.

We explored her working out what she originally played and then recording it “properly” with mics on our lovely Bernstein grand piano, but decided we could use it “as is”; we loved the way it was played.

(Ian 01/29/2025)