I Think We Southerners Have Talked A

The Older I've Got The Less I Find Myself Going Back And Re-reading Or Really Reading New Fiction Or Poetry.

A Need To Tell And Hear Stories Is Essential To The Species Homo Sapiens-second In Necessity Apparently After Nourishment And Before Love And Shelter. Millions Survive Without Love Or Home, Almost None In Silence; The Opposite Of Silence Leads Quickly To Narrative, And The Sound Of Story Is The Dominant Sound Of Our Lives, From The Small Accounts Of Our Day's Events To The Vast Incommunicable Constructs Of Psychopaths.

As A Child I Thought It Was Very Boring When I Had To Sit With [my Mother] On The City Streets, But The Time Sank Deep And Surfaced Later.

Southerners Ask Intimate Questions In The Way Monkeys Groom Each Other For Lice, Not To Pry But To Make You Feel Cared For.

The Death Of Every Art Form Seems Imminent At Least Once In Every Century; But While The Very Funeral Arrangements Go Forward, Some Child Is Born Who Is Michelangelo, Picasso, Yeats.