Until now

The silent and secret prayers

That everyone that I love and have loved would be safe

Had been answered for the past twelve years

And then one slipped through my hands

And into God's?

A reminder of the beauty of the world

That had become so ordinary and expected

I never stopped to show true appreciation

Until I felt the weight slowly descend onto me

And my soul would visit the bottom of the sea

Before it was done?

I knew that the call had to be made

One to the next to the next

The bonds of love and trust would stand firm again

As the circle began once more

All the while hoping I would see him

Sitting in Washington Square Park with pen in hand

Or walking up Avenue A with a smile

Willing to be humiliated and scorned

For lying to my comrades

Just to know he would be at one more reading?

Just to know that he helped keep me out of

A thousand dimestore novels

By reading a thousand poems at a thousand venues

For letting me know that he could do it

So I could do it

So all of us who ever gave a damn could do it?

But the knowledge that there would not be another poem

Cannot cloud the hundreds that came before

And that in his own silent reminder

He kept the flame burning

In his own silent reminder

He helped bring down the temples of hypocrisy stone by crumbling stone

In his own silent reminder

He made more noise that any of us

In his own silent reminder

He was always there to answer

The call.