For grace of having met

July 30, 1980

You still are here -- and yet my greeting flies (as love and longing will) ahead of you so it may welcome you where greyer skies are gentling into memory the blue and sharper wildness of a southernland, where a late sun revealed a mountain's face, where meeting meant to clasp a stranger's hand as that of friend, to bless a love with grace of faith and pain, of memories and trust. This memory we cherish and we share; and hence my greeting flies because it must to welcome you at home. Perhaps somewhere we smile again into each other's face -- grey-skied -- or blue -- in a love-hallowed place.