He saw the best minds of his generation burn like fabulous roman candles (to mix literary clichés).

Sixty-nine years ago today, his second book was tragically celebrated, seventy-nine years after the events it depicted.

And today I biked through my old university campus.

I would never have been there when I was had I not followed his footsteps to, in our youth, study writing in the heart of our Big Cites.

Through his works I found the way again, which meant I was able to find everything else again.

I’ve read his words blurry-eyed while riding buses across the continent and sitting in smoke-filled cafés.

I’ve read his words translated again into foreign languages I almost speak.

(Amazing how much those letters typed on a continuous scroll of paper resonated despite the problematic prose they created.)

Despite all that, it wasn’t him, but a remembrance of him abstracted through distant observers’ silent performances (and sonic ones, too) that shifted my gaze to this famous story of a first-generation immigrant’s time on the road.  

And today I still know, as I’ve always known, (even before I was born) that God truly
is Pooh Bear

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