This dank autumn day

It's oddly humid for October, more like July, except the leaves are turning and falling.
K's cat died, rather we "put him to sleep." A moving on. This is the season.

Jean Valentine's new book continues to haunt. Here's why.



I was lying there

I was lying there, half-alive
in a wooden room at a Russian country place.
You sat by me quietly. It's true you left
sometimes, but came back, sat by me
kindly quietly.
Woodsman, would you go back to the little-
light-wrapped trees
and turn them on again?
The hide of the deer shivered
The summer wind riffled through my hair.
You are on
a long, patient, summer visit from death.
I am forgiven. Forgiving. To your place
the next to be born.


To my soul (2)

Will I miss you
uncanny other
in the next life?

And you & I, my other, leave
the body, not leave the earth?

And you, a child in a field,
and I, a child on a train, go by, go by,

And what we had
give way like coffee grains
brushed across paper...