I scroll down your pages,
Each line making me hungry for
The next.

Father Eagle, wings spanning
Across multiple decades
Of strong life lived.

How many poetlings have you
Hatched from the cold, solid
Shells of their insecurity?

How many hearts have you
Guided from the darker corners
Of creativity, and

Into the light of a broader sprecrum
Of impression and expression?
How many lives

May just have been saved by the
Firm foundations of the attitudes you
Gift us with?

Keep challenging us, uncle Joe.
Keep soaring above the landscapes
Of ink and paper, of fingers

Painting themselves through keyboards,  
On nights where sleep has to yield
To the force of inspiration,

And remember...
You will live forever in the hearts
You have touched.

Long after your work is done in  
This world you made more beautiful and
Meaningful to so many;  

Once you become one with the trees,
Flowers, fields and woods that you
Love; even making those

Landscapes with which we all must
Merge more wonderful with your
Own perpetual grace,

You will be thought of. Spoken of,
Written of, reminisced about.
You tremendous man,

Friend, inspirator, teacher, creator.
May you live forever. A king cloathed
In ashes; humble.

A god, wearing Man, loving every
Strand of grass he graces with
His footprint.

You hold a thousand pens. You conduct
Legions of observers and transmitters.
You are the leaf you asked us to

Write about; at its most beautiful in
Autumn. Yellow. Dry enough to leave
Its tree and flutter through

It all. Unattached.
Unconcerned with
Winter.