The door to the office is now closed, and the round school clock ticks, last seconds, beginnings’hellip;as the wastebasket begins to overflow with yellow-lined fits and starts, spent ammo

that missed its target, some with one word, a line, a stanza, some full sheets stillborn. Muse? How does one say goodbye to a friend: ‘Those who know don’t speak; Those who speak don’t know.’

So it is with some human beings, those who share poems and pet stories, who are conscious of another calendar, and each other. Kathleen, come back and tell me what it’s like to be an electron, small and intense, so thin.

Will you be invisible the whole day, will your eyes go soft and wet with new mysteries, possibilities? Are you tired after so many years teaching over and over the secrets of writing: Read and Write.

Tired of attendees listening to every word, praying for recognition and affirmation? I struggle to find the words to say how sad is my reflection in this office window, but how glad

to imagine you under a straw hat in an arbitrary garden, a lady bug in hand, a little dog at your feet, a table nearby with flowers and an open book, each line breaking off a bit of the world, while you pursue your own black on white.

Every writer creates his own language, so I finally find the words: friendship is like a river that is always splitting up into arms that reunite, friends are ageless, more alive than the living, set apart from the others in our lives.