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There are dreamers
who mount the box
to speak the words
that people need,
to give them
strength of heart
to do great deeds,
and make the world anew.
There are dreamers
too of a different
sort,
the kind who place
brick on brick,
who fix their minds
on concrete things,
on details and dreary
facts, who
cast the soaring words
aside,
but give us now a glimpse
of what the future hides,
a vision
and a poetry
of better lives,
wrenched from a world
gone mad.
Fate bound us together,
George,
for I was born on your
own day, and though
a childhood ago,
much for me remains.
Those rodeo's will ride
forever in my memory of you
...the seders which drew together
across
millenia of time and tradition
...and your special gift
and conviction,
that reason,
a relentless quality of mind,
could lead us through
this pass
to a gentler time.
Your passion burned
with quiet indignation,
for fifty years
kept true to this
simple position:
that dignity belongs
to all, not a few.
My uncle,
who built what
others only dreamed,
how proud we are of you,
to have shown us,
brick on brick,
the way to that
better world which
still waits
to be wrought
and born.
December 1988