Oh, Leonard, you, eternal lover, caressing the strings of my heart with your voice, making love to my psyche until I fall without resistance at your feet, like a silk scarf stolen by the wind, like a woman’s dress when she succumbs wholly to her fate, like a leaf in the fall dancing its final waltz towards the ground, like you are the last man, the only man I ever loved. I beg you to define me to myself because you were born to understand the greatest mystery of all.  But all I hear is your song. It speaks of pain and love, of wars you won and wars you lost. It leads me to believe that the more we know the less we understand, that only feeling is real and yet it is the most unreal thing of all.

All these experiences combined, the sum of all parts, the meaning behind the first breath and the last, it’s always slightly out of reach but it don’t matter none because you own the in-between, the what happens now, you own the moment when the sheets were crinkled on the hotel bed and the time when she said “I’m yours forever” and you left because staying was too easy, the death of your art, and you own the resignation and the fight.

This morning as I listened to you sing, the white clouds above the city became angels’ wings, every broken heart was justified or redeemed, and the secret to your magic, to your invincible power and fragility remained unscathed.