In Sidi Bou Said
we wandered steep paths
through the blue and white town
as you pointed out hidden beauties,
childhood haunts.

Flower sellers called their wares.
You bought woven petals for our hair,
led us to a narrow shop of perfumes
where we dabbed our wrists with delicate scents –
Secrets of Carthage, Tunisian Nights –
aromas that lingered on skin like memory.

Climbing to a historic café
that clung to the hillside like a held breath
above the picture-perfect bay,
we turned a deaf ear to your cough,
your uphill breathlessness.
Instead, we sipped aromatic tea flecked with pine nuts
that drifted like lost boats on an amber sea,
listened to your stories of teenage years,
left the tea leaves with their future unread.

Later, at the seaside restaurant
where waves strummed the beach
and we toasted the night with Tunisian wine,
who among us dared acknowledge
the shadow at the edge of the moon,
the dark undertone limning our laughter?

The night we left Tunisia
there were final hugs, a flurry of thanks,
promises to meet again.
But as my children hurled themselves into your arms
I saw how you staggered slightly.

Long after our taxi turned the corner
leaving our Tunisian interlude behind,
we waved our goodbyes into the black predawn,
syllables of farewell strung out behind us
like stars, those flaming bodies
extinguished long before, still kindling the night.

Faris, yours was a song cut off on a high note.
But the years you lived still resonate,
a rich chord strummed across our days:
starlight streaming past its dying,
full moon transfixed at the moment of its waning,
the song of a man who lived and died
forever young.