The Hooper's Boy Poem by Richard Theze

As any artist might, I aspire to capture an old friend,
Not in broad, flaming brushstrokes, full-loaded with colour,
But plainly, unequivocally, in black and white,
Simple words on paper, strokes of an ineloquent pen.
Like Salinger, in Catcher in the Rye,  I attempt to create again
Flesh and blood: A three-dimensional reality to inhabit more
than my paper and ink world, And wonder,
were you that other troubled teen?
The youth I well knew was vital, raw, wild, sharp as a knife -
Knew often too, the sweet notes - spice and vanilla - of the barrel
staves.
Without knowing it, I loved you then,
Learned bitterly in Africa, over too distant a shoulder,
that you were gone;
Like the leather kid, (who tried his luck) ,
You pushed yours too far that night
An accidental death, tragically, And
ahead of time, you left us. Like a ring,
I will wear your loss, always,
Your force spent, And
regret the passing.