Farewell to The Cosmic Trickster.

(An elegy to Tom Robbins)

Dripping salt and story,
grinning like a Cheshire prophet,
you dove beneath the barnacled hull of reason,
where logic sputtered
and the moonshiners of metaphor
poured you another round.

Didn’t we learn from you—
that the world is a naked toastmaster,
that time is a lousy accountant,
that we should always, always
lick the stars like a postage stamp
and mail ourselves to wonder?

Now, slipping past the neon city of the known,
you leave us your laughter,
your loamy wisdom—
a coyote's howl from the jungle of possibility.

If there is a heaven,
it smells of jasmine and espresso,
and Pan himself is waiting,
pouring you a drink,
handing you a mask—not a whale this time,
but something even stranger.

And you’ll laugh, won’t you?
A great, mythic, moon-howling laugh,
before you vanish
into the next impossible story.