The poem, “Never Buried, That War–” began during a workshop (Stories that Matter) organised by the University of Cologne in 2019 where I was asked to speak about multimodal storytelling. I aimed to discuss my recently funded project in the Sonoran Desert about ecological practices of care, but found myself unable to focus on anything other than the loss of my friend and long-time collaborator, Ralph Sprenkels who had just died. I began by documenting the uncertain, heart wrenching, precious time spent in hospital collectively caring for Ralph as he laboured through an induced coma after suffering heart failure while out for an afternoon run. I set the poem aside. A few years later, Ralph’s partner, Michelle Melara Minero, together with colleagues from the University of Utrecht organised an event in honour of Rafa’s life work. I was asked to speak about our time with the Salvadoran Association in Search of Disappeared Children, the human rights organisation that he had helped to co-found. I turned to my notebooks from that time and continued writing the series of elegies for Ralph. I took the poems to a workshop with Ilya Kaminsky in the summer of 2022. After his invaluable feedback, I began to write the series with greater dedication. It’s a great comfort to know that they have found a home in a beautiful collection edited by Eva von Roekel and Fiona Murphy, A Collection of Creative Anthropologies.