I ride my bike down to the beach

after sunset

Easter Sunday

low-drifting clouds

over the ocean

in clusters

huddled

with oddly twisting appendages dangling

down,

almost miniature

tornados, with wisps of gray

and silver vapors

flecked by a wash of orange and pink

from the final rays of retired light.

 

I lock the bike to a signpost,

only a few people still

lingering on the beach.

Along the path there are

joggers, tourists, college girls,

an old Cuban lady who comes

every night to feed the stray cats

and I walk to the water’s

edge and smooth out my towel

on the sand

and kneel for a while

gazing at the supernatural sky

and think of you

and the mysteries of life and time,

how they circle back on themselves like a figure eight.

 

The waves are low,

breaking smoothly from left to right

along the outer bar

and that is something

that continues to astonish:

the simple elegance of a finely

turned wave.

 

I take a deep breath

and send it north

to you

and around you

like a protective cocoon.

I try not to think, just breathe easy as these are weighty,

wake-up times,

filled with thoughts of how we’re

supposed to act or speak.

One longs for the incantatory

moment, the loudness

of bells, the intoxicating

scent of flowers and incense,

the trancelike movements

of a long forgotten dance.

but we have this instead,

the sand and mottled darkness of the sea.

 

The day we met,

fourteen years ago,

was a kind of pas de deux,

two waves converging

in a downtown studio.

You seemed intense and smart,

in love with life and all

the messy contradictions.

I got that right away

and we became instant friends

in the post-9/11 smog.

 

You wore a ratty, ancient t-shirt and showed me the

drawings you’d done of bodies

falling from the Twin Towers

and in the general state of shock

yours seemed to the clearest voice

of all.

 

You showed me a hairy

Fillmore East photo

and I told you

how I’d been in

the same stoned crowd

for Hendrix and Quicksilver and

even Moby Grape,

waiting in line on 2nd Avenue.

That was another bond: how we

would have preferred to play

guitar in a rock band,

and understood that right away,

the generational reflex.

 

I wrote about you

in the Times and the piece

was called something like:

“Frederic Schwartz: The Man who Dared the City to Think Again”

with a photo of you peering

through thick spectacles

as if recognizing something

that the rest of us were missing.

The caption for that

photo read “CITIZEN ARCHITECT”

and that’s what you were and that’s what you are:

the Citizen Architect,

thinking beyond himself,

designing for the world.

 

We stayed in touch,

spinning in different orbits

but with an affinity

of spirit that revolved

and remained

constant so that

whenever we met–in

New York, East Hampton

Milford–there was a

flash of recognition,

as if resuming a single conversation,

picking up where we’d left off

a year or more before.

 

It’s darker now and

the bottom layer of clouds

assumes an almost regimental formation,

tightening at the edges,

burnished with bronze.

I walk into the salt water,

through the basin with its

cross currents,

diving under the waves,

colder and deeper than I expected,

dispelling warnings

in my head about swimming

in darkness,

sharks and tidal rips,

and reach the sandbar

another fifty yards out,

checking for shadows

in the water–

and think of you

and your voice

and your face

looking up in that inquisitive way,

right here, in front of me…

dear Fred,

beloved friend,

Citizen Architect.

First sent this poem/note to Fred Schwartz on Monday, April 28, a few days before he passed away. Read it again last night–Monday, June 30–at a memorial tribute at the Architect’s Center in NYC that was organized by Fred’s wife, Tracey Hummer.