Yesterday was my birthday, and today would have been my old friend Richard's 62nd birthday. I have one other photo of us together, but that one is in silhouette as we are walking hand in hand in the direction of the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean. If it weren't for Richard, I wouldn't have any photos of us at all. For both photos, he set up the camera and stepped into the picture.
Today when I was getting groceries, I ran into a man that Richard worked for as a carpenter in California a long long time ago. I don't see him around that often. What are the chances that some years ago, I would get out of my car to deliver some paintings to an art gallery and that a man would get out of the car next to me and offer to help and that it would turn out that Richard had worked for him? And that as he and his wife were in the grocery store parking lot today, he would recognize me and stop to talk on Richard's 62nd birthday?
Then, this morning, I was talking with Richard's sister, Dorothy, who had left a message yesterday for my birthday. She said she was driving on a back road in the coast hills on the San Francisco Peninsula and saw a solitary crow skipping along the road. She knows that whenever I see a crow skipping I think of Richard. I even wrote a poem featuring a skipping crow and innocence and forgiveness when Richard and I were both 50 years old.
TWO INNOCENTS WITH EXPERIENCE
All desire. No forgiveness.
Years later it was early spring
with Red-Winged Blackbird,
Goldfinch, faithful Canada Goose on the trail
and return of the Tree Swallows.
Then I remembered.
He was sitting close to me.
Mr. Solitary Crow skipped by us like a child.
We laughed until we were children again.
This was how I experienced love.
I was innocent of forgiveness.
If you have time, listen to something that spoke to Richard's heart and which speaks to mine.
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