It’s awkward to confess this to you now:

I wasn't your most ardent devotee!

Still, I'd read a line, I'd catch an image,

that made me pause or gasp, or even bow.

Stray phrases would jolt me fully awake:

electric paddles to a flat-lining soul.

Too often, though, I’d be gatekeeperish:

I'd gripe about a lack of old-school structure,

and wave you off as one of the 'cool kids'—

I balked at your particular excellence:

that energetic honesty, the buzz

around your books and your performances.

But how the vital urgency of your voice

brought showers of sparks, of fire-bright compassion

for this hard world that you loved just as hard.