poets, artists, healers

i keep wayne's business card tucked inside the pages of "the wild braid" by stanley kunitz.

the poet was about 93 years old when he wrote the piece entitled "an incarnation", and i shared that book and passage with wayne about 2 years ago, when he phoned me and called me to his office in philadelphia. i had been living in nyc for 15 years and made the journey to chestnut hill 3 or 4 times a year for long sessions of therapy, mentoring and friendship. this was the only time in our 23 year history together that wayne requested a visit of me. of course, i knew about his long illness and the bouts with cancer as well as his remarkable and inspirational being during those events and remissions. this time he told me that he knew he was not going to be here very much longer. he estimated between a year and two. he generously poured himself in to our session that day, we cried frequently. once, upon hearing a loaded remark of mine around a love relationship i was in, stood his weakened frame up out of his familiar leather chair and at a very thin 6 foot 4 (at least), shouted and cursed in my defense, in fervent support of my very soul! i will never forget that image, the power in his voice or the depth of his love.

the following is a quote from kunitz that i hold honorifically as a torchlight to wayne's influence

on not only myself, which has been crucial, but to the world. you can put healer wherever it says poet or artist, as of course, they are synonymous.

"when an individual dies, the web connecting all life remains. it is reconstituted. the whole construct is renewed; the individual creatures who inhabit the web keep changing....

we forget that the human spirit is poured in to the art form, and becomes the electric center of that spirit among future populations. you can pick up a poem by keats of coleridge and sense the living vibration in the poem. that vibration can not be removed from the poem. it's a remarkable thing. absolutely remarkable....every time we read a poem from the past we resurrect the poet, so that he or she is a presence just as much as anyone living and that is miraculous in itself. any contribution to civilization is a contribution to immortality and that is why the explorers and the inventors, the artists and the political leaders who contribute to history, to the social structure, are really never gone. that's a most encouraging phenomenon."

nixa de bellis

aka barbara de bellis - "barbara, lovely barbara" is what wayne called me from the days of my youth, before i changed my name in '92...like a family member who knows your childhood and everything about you, i never wanted him to change that. i'll always answer to barbara from him or my sister, carole.