More lines from a thank you note... And thanks for quiet women who cook and sew and tend to ancient ones. thanks for silence lit alone by clock light; for rarely interrupted dream-free sleep. for neighbor ladies who wave from their porch. for energy infused from the great spirit amidst those moments of desperation when flight seems the only solution. thanks for flight as a solution. for Joan Baez. Many thanks.

Thanks also for a thin tanned lady; and small girls who seek to ascend her garden’s gate. for a brown faced boy soon to travel alone

Thanks also for children sounds singing in laughter somewhere unseen. for an injured neighbor able to listen

More lines from a thank you note... Thanks also for a Mississippi house, for each swing and slide and tree tied rope we raced to on arrival. Mostly thanks to her for each embrace, for teaching us to sing. For training us to become less afraid and how to make a karo pecan pie. Thanks for every story of cattle drives, of how daddy became the mule's master. Thanks for each cousin who came near to play. Thanks for a twisting road back to Memphis. Many thanks.

More lines from a thank you note... Thanks also... for dirt paths that disappear from the road thanks for uncut forest land and for every mite and stallion abiding there for steepness in hills and fields beyond where trees can grow for flat rock to lay upon beneath sun and moon and circles of stars inside the black night configured outside all imagination unchanged ever by issues of man thanks for the touch of bare feet against dirt a hand to shield sunshine from my eye for the feel of sun against my cheek thanks for a place to be even if in dream untouched by pavement and electronic signal thanks for geese in southern flight for sight to see them for breath Many thanks