Darling love, up in the aerie on this crystalline day, so perfect it seems amazing that it follows the devastating tornado of a couple of days ago, about a hundred miles east of here, in Springfield, MA, not far from Amherst.

I had a dyspeptic morning, and I'm glad I wrote to you, a way to salvage my day. I skipped my workout given my spasmodic back (not in pain thankfully, just occasional & momentary paralyzing stiffening - but I think it may be abating, I hope so, I took a long hot shower and the heat may have helped) but took a second walk, this one without my weights and of course without my camera (a strange lightness - pointlessness almost - of being, without either) and this time when I passed the dead creature on the side of the road, lying this morning in broad sunshine but later, in the afternoon in dappled shade, I was no longer frightened that it was a creature that might rise from the dead as in a horror film and rabidly run across the road to attack me; I now recognized it for what it was, from its tail, a raccoon, eyes still open in its moment of death; and it was certainly dead, all these hours later as I encountered it from the other side of the road; and well, talk about life being a run of good luck & bad luck. The poor raccoon. I wonder about it, I do. This specific one - was it male, or female? If female, are there now baby raccoons somewhere in nearby brush whose lives without their mother's sustenance are now in grave jeopardy? But how far can I carry such thoughts? Not very far. I wasn't about to go into the shrubbery, into the wilds of all the creeks and ravines and ancient cemeteries and woods that crisscross and interweave all throughout here.

But I count myself fortunate, especially in comparison to that poor raccoon. I feel keenly touched when I come upon - always a shock - fresh roadkill. I know that I'm not alone in this - and yet, sometimes I think that feelings of empathy & connection with the animal world are all too rare. I know that some people, many, don't care at all. So I keep my horror & my grief (momentary but acute) to myself, and I readjust myself, and I cope, and I go on, even if it means crossing the road. I remember with great fondness some years back, working with a young planner who had grown up in the Dominican Republic, the sweetest most poetic soul ever, soulful eyes & long eyelashes. He and I were quite simpatico, recognized spiritual qualities in one another I suppose. Nothing romantic, not at all, I have a good twenty years on him - I don't know, I couldn't put a name on the relationship, it wasn't motherly or auntly - no, I suppose just two poetic souls recognizing each other, as he'd pass by my cubicle on the way to his weekday mornings, and pause to greet me hello. One Monday morning he did just that, and we exchanged greetings & pleasantries. How was your weekend?, I asked. Very nice, I drove with friends up to Vermont, for the first time in my life. Oh!, I said to him with delight (I love Vermont). So how did you like it? Did you have a nice time? José looked at me gravely, responded - yes - and then his visage turned troubled - but all the roadkill -

And when he said this I had this reaction of - what an extraordinary person José is, that he noticed this, that this is the single detail of his whole weekend trip that he has singled out, that he has told me, he gets it, and I get it - it was an astonishing moment when he uttered that, so unexpected, and I've never forgotten it.

So darling, the light is fading, and I do count myself lucky, or fortunate, in many ways, including my amazing ability to kiss you any time I wish, simply conjure you in my mind, from the moment I stir in bed as I start to wake up (good morning darling) to just now, at this beautiful hour on this beautiful day when perhaps you & I should take glasses & a bottle of our favorite libation out to some jade-green glade and toast each other & examine buttercups and stretch our legs out on a lawn clipped so close that there's no fear of tics and yet there's lovely woods all around, and a burbling something or other, brook or maybe manmade natural pool, and we hold hands and sip our drinks and repast on sheep's milk camembert on its own because its flavor is so delicate that only the plainest thin slice of baguette (which I don't at the moment possess, only dour Victorian loaves in the deep freeze where they belong) doesn't overwhelm.

Darling! Many kisses. Amazing how beautiful (as I regard blooms in a vase on my desk) are multipetaled pale pink tinged flushed complicated folds of roses that resemble uncannily, precisely, nakedly, intimate anatomies. Dreaming of your beautiful lips, darling, many kisses.