I Come Down To The Water To

Skin Was Earth; It Was Soil. I Could See, Even On My Own Skin, The Joined Trapezoids Of Dust Specks God Had Wetted And Stuck With His Spit The Morning He Made Adam From Dirt. Now, All These Generations Later, We People Could Still See On Our Skin The Inherited Prints Of The Dust Specks Of Eden.

The Surest Sign Of Age Is Loneliness.

She Is Nine, Beloved, As Open-faced As The Sky And As Self-contained. I Have Watched Her Grow. As Recently As Three Or Four Years Ago, She Had A Young Child's Perfectly Shallow Receptiveness; She Fitted Into The World Of Time, It Fitted Into Her, As Thoughtlessly As Sky Fits Its Edges, Or A River Its Banks. But As She Has Grown, Her Smile Has Widened With A Touch Of Fear And Her Glance Has Taken On Depth. Now She Is Aware Of Some Of The Losses You Incur By Being Here--the Extortionary Rent You Have To Pay As Long As You Stay.

I Had Good Innings, As The British Say. I Wrote For 38 Years At The Top Of My Form, And I Wanted To Quit On A High Note.

We Sleep To Time's Hurdy-gurdy; We Wake, If Ever We Wake, To The Silence Of God. And Then, When We Wake To The Deep Shores Of Time Uncreated, Then When The Dazzling Dark Breaks Over The Far Slopes Of Time, Then It's Time To Toss Things, Like Our Reason, And Our Will; Then It's Time To Break Our Necks For Home. There Are No Events But Thoughts And The Heart's Hard Turning, The Heart's Slow Learning Where To Love And Whom. The Rest Is Merely Gossip, And Tales For Other Times.