Rex - tall, bearded, in motion, coffee in hand
furrow-browed, beard-tugging man.
Don Quixote of the black box, opinionated one,
charging full tilt at possibility, pulling sets out of air, on time, somehow.

Harnessed to the mission, a notion, the tick-tocking
of tech deadlines and opening night in the background;
throwing your full weight into it, keys jangling -
doing what has to be done, daily, fiercely, whatever it takes
to get there - again and again.

I know, you've said - you're just where you are
doing what you're doing. "Work is love made visible," Kahlil Gibran wrote
for you I think, and by the way,
how many blue denim shirts and pants do you own for god's sake?

You are keeper of the phone numbers for mysterious secret sources
of everything we ever wanted and needed two days into tech but didn't know
where to find (cheap or for free.)

You finish the edges and backs and tops of things
after hours, worry about what only God's angels and stagehands might see
because the whole universe is in the details (lucky man finding grace
in black semi-gloss, in duct tape);
building meaning round us like a spider weaves a web,
filling empty space with light and sound and whatever you can beg-borrow-or-steal,
making a place where magic knows without asking
it's invited in, and someone who's been waiting to tell their story can.

Stories? Here's one - the day you took a smoke break out back and took your hat off
and set it down beside you and someone dropped a quarter in.

And the hundred-year Twinkie test fastened to the scene shop wall
covered with the construction-grime of how many sets and how many seasons
(will this filling still be soft and creamy when we're old?
who knows but it will surely still be sweet.)

And that field trip we took - our evening off from everything
skiing in the falling snow at Stevens Pass
(and who knew you could move like that
on gravity's frozen edge, past dark,
carving fast curves flying
down the fall-line - not a word, just another surprise
between a few of us.)

Wherever you are you find the work that is the real work
the stuff that tears at hands and heart but never makes them hard
that makes doors swing open for an entrance,
and lights up on cue, and lasts,
circuits patched together with your
endlessly goddamned stubborn faith and love,
wherever you are -
teacher, mentor, friend.

-Janet Berkow