DEAR J--

You old fool.

You impetuous young man.

You running-around chicken with your shooting jets of blood and your head cut off.

You slow usurper, quietly looking and then slowly taking in.

You small philosopher with your hands folded behind your back.

You humpback whale doing underwater what ballets do in the air.

You cratered diamond head.

You foaming beach surf.

You dreaming dreaming dreamer.

You pearl-bodied boy, collecting sand in your pockets.

You small clay dish and all the things you can hold.

You drunk stuttering poet.

You colored feather-being, of a body soaring with sky.

You deep cold ice cave with your great yawning maw waiting, waiting for Moses and his closing command.

You red-shingle roof with your collected family of collected roofs shining all the way to the harbor, all the way to the market, then beyond it to the sea.

You sun-baked razor blade, looking again to draw up blood, looking again to dry up in the sun, waiting again to divorce the wheat from the chafe, the goats from the lambs.

You orange-breasted bird, with your peals of perfume and all the melody of a hot-headed lover.

You skipping vinyl record and your cycle turning eternal, following before you the path set by the Lord.

You great great Beginning with your great grateful Ending.

You beloved archer: an impeccable visionary but a terrible aim.

You telling teller.

You patient lector.

You drunken doctor with your split lip precision.

You exiled wandering jew, wandering for all wanderers and exiled for all jews.

You single salt tear drop burning sizzled in the Son.

You dark brush beast, wounded and holding up your wound for all the dark brush to see.

You prism-eyed prince with your spectrum of refracted light pouring forever and ever down the magic eternal shore.