For Alan

THE WALKS

for alan geller died March 23, 2018

Stockton Street is quiet at ten o’clock

my way leads to Union Square

his way lead to Columbus and eventually Lombard Street

we stand at the corner talking of things, of books

he tells me it’s time to change it all up, to travel and go

I say thanks, thinking of the many walks his feet have taken

in Brooklyn, San Francisco, Paris, Lisbon, and beyond,

this beyond which I think of as he speaks to me

hearing his friendly tone admonish me to reach for more

understanding the desires of creating something out of nothing

this is all an instant now a memory in the histories

gathered in journals with dates, hours, minutes,

that I clumsily jot down in unmetered starts and stops,

and in walking down the same streets I still see him

strolling to the bus stop, hands stained with paint

mind thinking of new shades, new figures

reworked, erased, dipped in a palette of discovery

we each go our own way, me to sleep, he to eternity.