Things fall apart, the poet said, before there was what to fall, before the deliverance from sloth and ignorance, homogeneous ruin.
I remember the early days; the miles walked, desperate to keep up with him. His steps, like letters on a rolling printing press, wrote in sidewalk echo the narratives that poured forth from his mouth, his hands, as the world passed beneath his feet. The soft sound of his footfalls stopped now here to smell some roses, now there to point out some crack in the familiar world, a shoddy roof, an accomplished ant trail. Or the toes would turn to me and I would stand before the reprimand; for not knowing my basics, for speaking out of turn; or he'd kiss me with his eyes lit up and open, all space beyond a foot from us receeding into nothing, never, what and wherever.
Across four continents I walked with, for, because of him. His walks made me become myself, because my self was forced into shape in the space between his strides, in the striving to match his pace, the will to follow his lead, in the perception of how beautiful any, every step with him could be. In palaces and through favelas, to tango and manele, noon and midnight, asphalt and jungle, sand and stone, we walked.
I am but one of many, I know, who learned to walk with him. Who learned a deeper love, or, rather, were left with no choice but to learn a deeper love of him through distances in time and space spent covering the world, real and abstract. My odometer gave up long ago, but the memories, I hold still, and know in other hearts and minds who knows how far away fundamentally similar if inescapably distinct memories float on, full of him. There is nothing in the world I should like better than another walk with the man. To walk forever, into the end, together.
Or just once more. Just one more walk.