Richard at Sixty

Started one night with a call from a dorm room, Nothing much special back then, Hard to imagine that dialing that number Would turn into decades, my friend. Later we spread out the charts on the table, Pencils and patterns to read, Certain that gold by the turn of the century Would do exactly as we believed.

Charts, charts on the table, I've watched you rise and then fall, You taught me the patience of waiting And that none of us masters it all. Yes the markets roll in like the ocean, Then quietly roll back again, And somewhere between all the noise and the numbers You figure out who you've been.

We had our wonderfully terrible notions, Ideas too strange to be true, Like that Soul Assignment Store we imagined Where someone could sell off a few. Never intended for opening day there, The joke was the point all along, Sometimes the world only makes any sense when The logic is slightly wrong.

Charts, charts on the table, You carried us farther than planned, Through markets and music and evenings With stories and drinks close at hand.

Then there were nights down at Gabby's, Paul Metsa somewhere in the air, And Mark Edwardson reappearing again Like fate parked him quietly there. You've been a mentor and co-conspirator, A sounding board steady and true, And after the trades and the theories and laughter The best one was time spent with you.