You perch on the branch
of a black walnut tree. Forty-years
since our last goodbye.
 
Your wife posts photographs
of you in your hospice bed.
By now you’ve taken flight.
 
Unlikely that we meet like this,
you as a pilated woodpecker,
me with a journal & gel pen.
 
Wearing your characteristic beret,
still reading science fiction, listening 
to bebop – Miles Davis, Charlie Parker 
 
& Thelonious Monk. I hear 
your resonant peck-peck-peck
as you try to get my attention.
 
Your charcoal eyes blink & flare
like cinders in the trees.
You definitely have a message.
 
Thelonious used to stand up
from the piano to witness
the solos of band members –
 
their riffs, snaps & snares.
You recognize my contribution,
want me to join the chorus.