LEGACY
January 12, 2014

Somewhere in a remote library in Alexandria

lies a volume of history written 3000 years ago,

it speaks of Solomon and David and brings them to life

a legacy of the Egyptian writer



Somewhere in a church in Connecticut

a congregation is burying a town elder and

singing Amazing Grace to his memory

A former businessman, a former mayor

Afterwards a luncheon is held at the county building

that now bears his name



Somewhere in the Patent Office

Numbers float around like an anonymous hall of fame

of inventors of shoelaces and paperclips and photographs

And those floating numbers live on beyond the people behind the name



When John Lennon wrote Imagine

Could he imagine that over 30 years after his death

we still contemplate his charge: Imagine all the people living life in peace

The foundering newspaper and the instant online world both blow Imagine to pieces

Another senseless death without legacy



Somewhere in a midwestern concert hall

Mozart’s Requiem is played, he lives on and on

and down the road in the lecture hall Leaves of Grass is

debated by college freshmen and Whitman lives on and on

VanGogh’s Starry Night sells for more than Alaska did

and he lives on and on



Somewhere in the back of my closet

In a black briefcase stuffed with crumpled 20 lb paperstock

and blotted with various fonts and white-out

lies my legacy for family and mankind

Words of wisdom and intelligence for all the world to see

If only I have the time to set it free