When All Else Is Lost

From My Childhood, I Remember A Tiny Old Woman Named Mary, Made Pale And Almost Translucent By Time. Mary's Childhood Memories Extended Back To The Confusing And Violent Finale Of The Civil War, And She Told Stories Of Brutal Murders In Those Days And Refused To Name Some Of The Killers, As If Dead Men Might Still Be Prosecuted In The Late 1950s.

She Always Carried A Book, Though, In Case She Needed To Read A Few Pages To Avoid Unwanted Conversation.

Or Maybe It Is Only That We Are So Habitually Inattentive That When Some Rare But Simple Geometry Grabs Us By The Shoulders And Shakes Us Into Consciousness, We Call Our Response Sacred.

If I Had To Give Up Reading Or Give Up Listening To Music, I Suspect I'd Stick With The Music.

I Do The Same Things I Did When I Was 12 Years Old: I Ride Bikes, I Read Books, I Walk In The Woods. And I Listen To Music.