the spontaneous line which shook the sensibilities of mortal man

the line was pure poetry.  the line was universal in the cosmic

sense of the word.  the line was near spiritual. 

the line was spoken in a whisper lingering between

its creator and me, evaporating never to be repeated;

not through two adult lifetimes, nor an endlessly changing geography,
nor through marriages yielding combined children, nor the limitless

paper trails in obituaries of which the creator and me have heretofore

escaped with our lives.  the line, born from the northern light of a little

art school in 1963 during a restless class for "life-drawing"

to the document now at your hands in order to breathe back

into its dormant lungs its singular life:

“If there was a bus to Paris in the morning, I’d be on it.”