There was a small group of stem cells that were with him from beginning to end, till circulation stopped and the blood congealed.

In water and tissue, they witnessed the inflow of love through the umbilical cord.  Then later the inflow of milk, and the proteins from meat. 

All this was pre-trauma–within a boy, learning to ride horses.  The stem cells were intimately familiar with those features of his brain that drew him to other boys, and as time went on they wanted to scream and point to this proof.

And then post-trauma, the disgust knifing into his bloodstream.  The look on his father’s face infused every cell and lifted on black oil the jewel box that held his soul.

This small group of cells, that never had a purpose except to be witnesses, now lived in the invasion of smoking, drinking, cocaine, attractive and repulsive.

New circadian rhythms.  Love from a new family far away.  Images of the skyline.  Of two rivers.  The faces of artists.

Party boy, influencer, gallery owner, mayor of the cobblestoned streets.  His small dog grew into his side and looked up at him. 

Then eventually died, and stayed there for a long time.  Till she was cremated, and a tiny puppy fit into that place.  As he fed and trained her, he petted her, like Orpheus playing the instrument in his flesh; caring for small dogs and giving them a good life was Egizio’s art.

Along with talking, and hosting, and getting tipsy on martinis.

Opinions—what he loved, what he hated.  He surged around his opinions, lit with transcendence.

His childlike gaze went again and again to the new object in his home.  Balefully he stared into shop windows, reviewing in arias.

Falling towers, black smoke, and the stem cells were overwhelmed. This was different.  In came chemicals truly antithetical to life.  Just as the streets were engulfed, his organs were engulfed, and the ash could never be cleared away.

Malignant cells in the palate that so valued its discernment! 

But resilience, recovery.  The ash quiet, the ash stirred up…

One long beautiful agonizing walk, through light and shadow, through his beloved neighborhood.

Seeking love, the unique shape of a receptor, offering itself.

Now when it’s all stopped, and he is as still as SoHo at 4am, let’s eat and drink and look at things he approved of.  And let’s eat and drink and look at things he detested. 

How can we see him and make more memories? Be around him? Tall and thin, looking like a Count.  Hair short, hair long.  Join him on his walk, as he lets the dog with her incredible energy explore on her leash, toenails clicking, then scoops her up and carries her?

Egizio grows into our side.  There in the sling, we hold him.

Egizio slowly climbing two flights of steep wooden stairs, to bring us a thick smooth vegetable soup he had made.

(His small dog missing him even for these few minutes)

Egizio bringing us pasta in the special Bolognese sauce my wife loves.  I hear him coming–his footsteps and the hollow beat of his cane.

And calling a few days later for his quality Tupperware.

Egizio at his vast horizontal closet, with clothes hanging dense as a Mozart score, pulling out Tumi jackets and giving them to me.  Giving me, with great excitement, velvet jackets, beautiful but far too flamboyant for me.  I feel them draped over my forearm.

What amazing and disturbing wooden masks covered one wall.  As his guests sip scotch or good wine from Trader Joe’s, we’re hit by jagged waves of mana.  We’re in a polytheistic temple, if we choose to be.

The artwork of friends on tables and shelves—many penises in fiberglass or ceramic.  (After his death, those dicks would fetch money)

On a visit to NY in winter, I’ve left my hat in a taxi.  He gives me a much better one, along with a scarf.

He gives my wife a scarf.  One of many, some functional, some dazzling.

This one is both–gray with a pattern of leaves.  The leaves are inset with silver ziggurat zigzags and tiny pearl-like studs.  She wore it tonight and it seemed alive.  The leaves and the glitter together seemed alive.

Today we all receive the gift of seeing outward from the heart of the tree, seeing out through wood to the system of veins in mid-air.

Each person around the world–in the deserts, in the cities–looks at a tree or a plant or a weed, and meditates.  We graft the tree and human worlds together: we breathe in rhythm, we pour the energy of our minds into your growth, and you increase, your leaves get shinier.  Our skin and your bark, our arms and your limbs, our hearts and your tender unseen pith, there in the holy of holies.

How often your leaves and flowers have been braided into our hair; they’ve crowned our wrestlers and poets and our best charioteers.

How often we’ve walked the trails just looking at you.  That was our day’s entertainment.  We’ve come to you churning with cortisol, made desolate by concrete, just to look peripherally at your green blur, and be with you in this moment.  It’s quiet here in the middle of your lives, on a typical day.  The sun heats the fallen pine needles…

But enough about us.

Today, like everyone, I see your xylem and phloem in the sky.  I feel your leaves on my face.  I sense the miles of roots under my feet though they rest on linoleum.

I see outward through wood, wild wood, in its natural state.

Beautiful tree, we’re so happy to welcome you.  The living room is covered with dirt and moss, twigs and acorns.  Welcome, welcome.  Can we get you anything?  Here’s a dish of rainwater.  Sit, I’ll put on the Nature Channel.

Long silence.

Just relax, sway gently.  Ah, sip that rainwater.  This is a caterpillar-free zone.

An hour for you.  A day for us.

A leaf is drifting down through the apartment air.

Long silence.

Tonight the darkness will be made of all your unified shadows, and I will fear nothing.

Before you leave, is there something of yours I can keep?  That fallen leaf–I tape it to the skin over my heart.  It decays.   So be it.  I wear the fragments.  I look at you, or your cousin, or your cousin’s cousin, and my heart, under the leaf mold, is restored.

Today is your day!  Haha!  You try to blow out the candles, but that stream of oxygen just makes them burn eternally!  Go with God, who also breathed directly into you.