For almarhum Pat Walsh
Every scribe has their preferred parchment I suppose.
Yours was a page of one of those spiral notebooks that
flip open over the top.
Thick they were.
Generous in pages.
Substantial enough to act like bricks when,
having been filled and dated –
April 93, Sep 94 and so on –
you stacked them, one
on top of the other
on top of the other
building a notebook tower
wedged into the corner space of your desk, between the filing cabinet and the back wall.
Their spirals always got tangled.
Generous in numbers of pages they were
but very constrained in the page size department.
A5 I reckon, or maybe a bit narrower and a bit longer than that.
I always wondered, why those notebooks
their spines so wiry and bothersome
instead of I dunno a stitch-bound A4 exercise book?
Was it because:
- you could tear out the page without disturbing the bind?
- the limited page space afforded the
constrained expression sought by the press? - The A5 size fit more readily into the corner of your desk,
allowing easy recall of notebooks past?
The notebook tower was right there
after all
just behind the squat grey telephone if
for some reason
the tower had to be dismantled to get to some vital info
recorded in the notebook of Nov 91.
I remember your handwriting
and the way you signed your name,
leaving notes now and then, perhaps:
"Having lunch with Bill Armstrong.
Can you draft the text for the Buyung event? Pat"
The ‘P’ and the ‘a’ so matter of fact
but the ‘t’ always stroked with the most tremendous flourish and energy.
This rare combination blessed you:
the humility needed for Truth to assume centre stage
and the zest and happiness that put you at one with the world.
Kuala Lumpur, 2 January 2026
