18. LEGACY LOST - An acrylic painting on a 16 x 20 size canvas board. This painting was commissioned for the cover of Galaxy, June, 1977, but got lost in the mail so I had to do another one. I decided to do a different scene from the story. You can see it as image 21, titled "LEGACY" (which did not get lost!).

I recently received a gift from a fantasy and science fiction fan, it's a poem he wrote as a tribute to his four favorite illustrators in the field. He included me as one of them. His name is William Blackwood, he wrote the poem using a pen name. . . .

MIND DREAMS
by Royal Pearmain
(Note: There are six paragraphs to the poem, but for lack of space I am showing only the last three here)

"Conductors draw forth sounds orchestrated so fine
But can they compare to a pencil drawn line?
When that line creates wonder, the dreams of an age,
Which never existed, until you turn a page.
So I sit in my room, on days not so fair,
And stare at the walls, for magic hangs there:
A scene from a world, where lion beings rule,
A spaceman quite stranded, against a universe view.

Scenes of lost races, drawn from an abyss,
And a creature, half woman, with serpentine assets.
Dry, lonely Mars, two heroes of old,
Called Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, with faces so bold.
Star strung reaches, to the mind are revealed,
A Gully Foyle trip to an Aldebaran thrill.
All of these and far more, encompass my heart,
For they're just as real as their creator's art.
So I thank the Lord, for these four that He made,
Fabian, Freas, and Finlay, with Frazetta, not staid.

They have given us grandeur of a kind without peer,
Where worlds, oh so wonderous, will always be near."