Widening circles

The cafes I visit all have small shelf cases or stands containing free newspapers, magazines, which are more often than not, spacey New Age magazines, repertory cinema programs, course catalogs of private and public schools, advertising flyers and stacks of coloured postcard ads. The postcard ads promote various events, small festivals, performances, concerts, from ballet to hip hop, gallery openings, political rallies.

Last Saturday, dropping by one cafe, I found on the shelf an unusually thick stack of postards, more than two dozen, containing on the front a small sepia coloured photo of a smiling middle aged man wearing eyeglasses, his name printed underneath, and his birth and death dates below:

July 29, 1952 - April 4, 2007

(I am omitting the man's name here, and changing it to 'John Doe' below.)

The face seemed somewhat familiar. I must have seen him on the street or at the cafe, or at the pub next door. Certainly not on television or in the newspaper. I turned the postcard over, and on the back side was this poem or excerpt of a poem, printed in two languages:

Ich lebe mein leben im wachsenden Ringen,
die sich über die Dingen ziehen.
Ich werde den letzen vielleicht nicht volbringen
aber versuchen will ich ihn.

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

Rainer Maria Rilke

And that's all. No other information on either side of the cream coloured postcard printed on thick rough paper. Later, at home, I googled the man's name. I got two interesting hits. The first one was a news item.

Man And Bovine Die In Bizarre Accident

A _________ (U.S. state name - A.) man was killed in a bizarre accident last night after hitting a cow near the_____/_______ border Wednesday. John Doe, 54, struck the cow on the _______ side of the border and ended up on the ________ side of the line. His S-U-V slid into a utility pole and landed on its roof. Doe was wearing a seatbelt. Police say excessive speed or alcohol is not being considered as factors contributing to the crash. Doe was pronounced dead at the scene.

The second item was a listing of faculty members of a local school (I changed its initals here to 'ABC'):

John Doe leads the mixed ensemble/band. Mr. Doe graduated from ______ with a B.A. with Highest Honors in Music, then obtained a Masters of Music Degree in Composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Prior to joining the ABC staff, he taught Theory at C_____ School. He has also given private instruction in Classical and Jazz (saxophone, clarinet, piano) for 22 years, and has taught Theory and Composition privately for the last 14 years. Mr. Doe has performed professionally in the area since 1972, playing saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet in several distinguished orchestras, including the ______Symphony. He founded The _______ Philharmonia, for whom he served as Music Director and Conductor for six years. Mr. Doe joined the ABC staff in 1997.