Friends,

Let's capture some of why we loved Wilke so much. As one friend of his put it:

"...write up an anecdote – some story where they watched Wilke build up into righteous anger when reporting a story... or ironing out a crease in the fabric of the Journal bureau... And someone should talk about him tearing up when he described taking his kid to college…..Or when he became nearly inconsolable when the anthrax story came back and cost him two fantastic seats at the Nats-Mets game. Describe a time he filled in for people, picked up their loads for them, counseled them, slipped them incredible sources, shared bylines... that will keep him alive and you (and the rest of us) afloat."

Post comments or photos here.

20090531

Central Savings Time

Kit Wilke read this poem by Ian Ganassi, John's boyhood friend, at the memorial service.

Ian wrote this about the poem: "That wasn't actually about John... He read it online after he was diagnosed at the New Haven Review website (where it was published) and it meant something to him which is why I sent it to Kit."

Ian



CENTRAL SAVINGS TIME


A pack of feral cats with bloody mouths.

The terrifying ferocity of life
Beneath its thin veneer of beauty.

But no one really gets away with anything.

The markers bleeding through the page gave no instructions.

We cannot conceive a window without wanting to look out.
As long as we hear words we’re sure there’s a meaning.

Belief in an afterlife assumes one has lived,
Which is not always the case.

The branches of the cypress were swarming with daws.

The jaws of death yawned with boredom.

At the center of the pineapple there’s a spiral staircase.

At the center of the pomegranate is a revolving door.

I mean in the sense of there being no better way to go.

Time goes in one direction while we try to go in the other.

In the fall we gained an hour, but it was the wrong hour.

No one’s life is complete
When death presents his dance card.

Take it or leave it, break it or grieve it, it’s yours.
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