To George Pissarro (poem)

So glad to have known you my friend,

lived a piece of your life and art.

To my eyes a genius

unsung, penurious as the greats,

stone and oil

wood and wax, aflame

in your vision,

aloft with wings of canvas

marbled smoothly skyward

you drifted

studio to studio

fed the pigeons that strolled

your kitchen more at home than I,

biked the Hudson,

ferried Staten Island

for twenty years

handed off programs

at Avery Fischer Hall.

What became of your works?

I treasure the sheaf of photos you sent

images of your heart

and wild, wild soul

(your madness could be scary)

and the head of stone

you bequeathed me

broken from its body,

the very piece you struggled to hoist

up your west-

fifty-

fourth stoop

a winter day

in the past century --

something fluttered in my ribcage:

"Need a hand?"

How a life may bend on such a bone.

So glad to have known you,

crazy Portuguese francophone,

amazing carver and smoother of stone;

had I the means I'd have been the patron

you deserved,

could have saved your work and vision

but probably never

you.