The Night of the Day Robert Died

The night of the day Robert died, I dreamed of the pelicans that gather just off the sands of South Beach folding themselves into smooth missiles and dive bombing, over and over, again and again, into the water to snare the fish that only they see just below the surface.

No, that wasn't the night of the day Robert died, it was the night after we watched the beautiful documentary on his sui generis life and career, the one where students from decades ago testified to how he changed their lives even though he himself swore he was no teacher at all, the one that showed him returning day after day to the construction site to repaint, on the sidewalk-facing plywood, in just a few strokes the mountains that overnight the workers had covered over in black, the one that ended with him painting with water on seaside rocks, only to watch the figures, his glyphs, vanish from view along with any fame that he might have had, or should have had.

The night after we watched the story of Robert's life I recited over and over in half-sleep these lines of Leonard's: So come my friends, be not afraid, we are so lightly here / It is in love that we are made, in love we disappear . . . So come my friends, be not afraid, we are so lightly here / It is in love that we are made, in love we disappear . . . So come my friends, be not afraid, we are so lightly here / It is in love that we are made, in love we disappear.