for Greg Bryant
I keep thinking about Thanatopsis,
about Bryant writing by candlelight
at 16, adding intro and finis
a decade later, breath, heartbeat, insight,
laughter, deep pain…living for fifty-eight
more years, mixing law and hog reeve, moving
to Manhattan where he’d own and edit
the Evening Post, keep writing verse, loving
Frances, intro Abe at Cooper Union
(door to his presidency), guide great dreams
of Central Park, the Met Museum, don
defender’s cloak for immigrants, those streams
of unshielded workers. My years in New
York, some days I’d sit, talk to his statue.
Roger Armbrust
April 24, 2008
