Dear Leonard,
We have never met in person, but I feel like a line in a Josef Brodsky poem, something about parallel lines meeting above a tree line, is a reality at least from my perspective. I didn’t know it at the time, being 17 and feeling much like an outcast in a sea of conformity in an old puritan family in 1967 Massachusetts, but you wrote my “job description” in a stanza of Suzanne;
"She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbor
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever"
I have not had the pleasure of hearing you sing in person, but most of your music is etched in my heart and/or brain as I “get” music by listening to something over and over and over. I owe you a huge piece of my humanity and am eternally grateful for your incredibly generous spirit.
Thank you,
Candace Brown