I Grew Up Sort Of Middle Class,

Even If People Laughed At The Notion Of Goodness, If They Found It Sentimental, Or Nostalgic, It Didn't Matter -- It Was None Of Those Things, He Said, And It Had To Be Fought For.

The City Was Bigger Than Its Buildings, Bigger Than Its Inhabitants Too. It Had Its Own Nuances. It Accepted Whatever Came Its Way, The Crime And The Violence And The Little Shocks Of Good That Crawled Out From Underneath The Everyday.

He's At Ease, His Body Sculpted To The Music, His Shoulder Searching The Other Shoulder, His Right Toe Knowing The Left Knee, The Height, The Depth, The Form, The Control, The Twist Of His Wrist, The Bend Of His Elbow, The Tilt Of His Neck, Notes Digging Into Arteries, And He Is In The Air Now, Forcing The Legs Up Beyond Muscular Memory, One Last Press Of The Thighs, An Elongation Of Form, A Loosening Of Human Contour, He Goes Higher And Is Skyheld.

He Told Me Once That There Was No Better Faith Than A Wounded Faith And Sometimes I Wonder If That Is What He Was Doing All Along --trying To Wound His Faith In Order To Test It--and I Was Just Another Stone In The Way Of His God.

One Of Those Out-of-the-ordinary Days That Made Sense Of The Slew Of Ordinary Days. New York Had A Way Of Doing That. Every Now And Then The City Shook Its Soul Out. It Assailed You With An Image, Or A Day, Or A Crime, Or A Terror, Or A Beauty So Difficult To Wrap Your Mind Around That You Had To Shake Your Head In Disbelief.