El pintor de palabras se recostó con su café
En el viejo y maltratado sillón de color burdeos.
Deseó estar bebiendo borgoña
En una silla de color café, pero los mendigos no pueden elegir.

Ser un pintor de palabras no es tan lucrativo como lo era en el pasado.
Sin embargo, en el lado positivo del libro mayor, nadie era probable
Para pedirle que nade el Hellespont
y arriesgar su vida por la independencia griega.

¿Qué, entonces, debería escribir hoy?
Pensó en ella que una vez había usado su anillo.
Pensó en una niña encantadora, bronceada
Con mechones ***** azabache
y ojos latinos vivos.

Extraño, no había pensado en ella en bastante tiempo.
Bueno, pensó, después de todo, hoy es su cumpleaños.
“Feliz cumpleaños a mi querida Barbara Jeanne.

Me enseñaste lecciones de amor y pérdida
y me dejó con solo el toque de un poeta.

The Word Painter sat back with his coffee
In the battered old burgundy colored armchair.
He wished he was instead sipping burgundy
In a coffee colored chair, but beggars cannot be choosers.

Being a word painter is just not as lucrative as it was in the past.
Yet, on the positive side of the ledger, no one was likely
To ask him to swim the Hellespont
and risk his life for Greek independence.

What, then, should he write today?
He thought of her that once had worn his ring
He thought of a girl, lovely, tan
With jet black tresses
and lively Latina  eyes.

Strange, he hadn’t thought of her in quite some time.
Well, he thought, after all, today is her birthday.
“Happy birthday  to my Dear Barbara Jeanne.

You taught me lessons of Love and loss
and left me with just the touch of a poet.

The manuscript was proofed and approved
when Rachael Carson spoke to us that night.
Silent Spring would be her testament;
her final gift to the world of men.
Her cancer of the breast had spread
and she fought weariness often now.
Still, she knew she must sound the warning;
“Reform your ways or face your worlds end.”
To her well-trained mind, it’s true
She found Our Earth beautiful and new.
Still, she saw troubling things as well
in the thinning of the Ospreys shell.
If these beautiful birds still grace our skies
Thank Rachel Carson for she was wise..
Heed well her words and the light they bring
If you seek to avoid a silent Spring.

On beams of steel they Death defy,
while they're working way up high.
They are union brothers; Iron men.
The fraternity of the Sky Walker clan.

Two thousand feet up, they weld the steel
In heat and rain they labor on
until a new glass tower greets the morning sun
then the Sky Walker clan moves on.

Muscle and balance; skill and zeal
it takes to make those blue prints real.
They built this City; story by story
That is the Sky Walker's claim to glory

There’s a seat at the table if you’re so inclined.
Bitter herbs and fish are offered, served with bread and wine.
It’s an intimate Seder gathering, just twelve of his close friends.
He calls them Disciples. You know what this night portends.

There’s a seat at the table, for one man’s left early.
Judas seemed racked with guilt, by turns worried and surly.
Did our Host have foreknowledge, or did he merely suspect,
when he pointed out that traitor when they both dipped their bread?

Our Host is reflective; there is much on his mind
As he offers us bread and he blesses the wine.
This week has been a whirlwind of Halcyon days.
He entered by the Eastern gate to much acclaim and praise.

There was that trouble at the temple where the money changers lurk.
You never saw the Lord so angry when about his Father’s work.
Now our Seder is concluding and it has been a long day,
Will you join us at Gethsemane where the master’s gone to pray?

The Yankees took the field and we heard the anthem played.
The air was thick that August night.
Louisiana Lighting placed his cap upon his head.
The stadium lights were burning bright.
Ron Guidry turned to face home plate
With a feeling akin to  despair
He searched in vain for the Catcher’s sign
From the man who wasn’t there.

Eight Yankees took the field that night.
The Umpire stood alone.
Collectively we felt the pain
of Thurman Munson gone.
Jerry Narron caught that game
The Yankees rallied late.
Yet all felt the vacancy
That had happened at home plate
Upon this sad anniversary
I solicit your thoughts and prayers
For the Yankees fallen Captain;
the man who wasn’t there.

Despite what you’ve heard, despite what you’ve read,
There is crying in baseball, it has to be said.
Some forty years back, when I was still a young man,
Thurman Munson had crashed while attempting to land.
Jet fuel fed the fire; all the others got out.
Munson was trapped in his seat and could not.

A hero to many; a friend to his mates,
Poor Thurman deserved a more generous fate.
He should have grown old with his family and then
been honored in Cooperstown with a plaque at the end.

Instead, he died young, in pain and in terror.
I couldn’t believe it- there must be some error.
But no,- he was gone, but the game doesn’t stop.
Still, he went out a champion, a winner on top.

Then, when his friend, Bobby Murcer, stood up to address
friends, family, teammates, and the men of the press.
There were offers of handkerchiefs; even grown men broke down
That day we committed our friend to the ground.


There were no dry eyes I tell you there were none to be found.
Lamentations and weeping were the dominant sound.

There is crying in baseball, at least on that day
When a hero to many was taken away.
I remember Bob Sheppard, his cheeks wet with tears,
his baritone echoing down through the years.

My hair has gone grey and my muscles have grown soft.
I remember his seasons and recall all we lost.
Despite what you’ve heard, despite what you’ve read,
There is crying in baseball, it had to be said.