West ON NOVEMBER 10TH, 2007, DONDA WEST DIED On November 10th, 2008, you were between shows. November 9th, Dublin, Ireland. November 11th, London, England. By ferry and car, the journey from Dublin to London takes about eight hours. By plane, about an hour. I have to imagine you flew. But maybe not. Maybe you spent two hours, three hours, on a ferry. The journey between two points is such a straight line. Maybe you needed to be on the Irish Sea. The blue of it. The blue looks miserable. The very shape of the sea is like a face, mourning, gagging on a moan. And it must be salty, like all seas. Though for a sea to leave cliffs instead of beaches. That tells me it’s killed its fair share of mothers. The Irish stop clocks at the time of death. They stay with the body day and night until the burial. They recite poems. They sing. They cry and drink. They kiss the dead body. Given the autopsy, at least some of these, you were unable to do. But the first anniversary of a death. I know it. We sometimes burn a yahrzeit candle.
