Avenue Duquesne

This morning I exchanged hellos and good wishes with a young fellow who last summer had briefly been a waiter at my usual café. He was passing en route to wherever he was going. This time when I saw him, I thought: May he, with his optimism and cleanness, and others of his generation, work at dragging a little further into the light our dysfunctional race, as some in my generation and in all previous ones have worked at doing – and if we are outnumbered, so what? Waking this morning – so, before the avenue Duquesne – I remembered Hudson River light: mellow, full, quiet. There it is, without anybody. All the best, young fellow.