He sits alone, his eyes trained on another little leaflet he's bought 
from the publisher at the corner.  The others around him speak of 
poetry and politics and gesture excitedly, but he sits in a world of 
calm.  It's as though he exudes an air of independence, indifference-
-he's never asked to be let alone, but even strangers who venture 
into the coffeehouse give him wide berth without ever seeming to 
question why.

It's not as though there are many strangers to wander through, and 
those that do seem not to stay.  They all write here.  And talk and 
philosophize and do all those things that make them feel that they 
are at the top of the world and no one can touch them.  He is among 
them and there are days that he seems to speak more than any other.  
They greet him and offer him drink and food and ideas, but still he's 
alone.

He makes his home wherever he is, the space around him immediately 
his own no matter where or when or why he is in it.  And when he 
speaks he betrays himself, for there is no man who should understand 
the world the way he does, who should speak with such eloquence after 
a carafe of wine that he mesmerizes those around him.  I think he 
notices sometimes, and that is when his space becomes invisibly 
larger, when he ceases speaking and observes again, the way I 
observe.

It is his eyes, though, that speak more than his lips ever could, but 
only to those who are listening.  Only to those that look.  Those 
chameleon eyes with dancing amber stars that look a thousand years 
old.  My eyes caught his once on a dreary morning and I thought I saw 
the world in them.

finis