What a wonderful vacation I've had! Spending time with my ever fascinating, ever enigmatic children and Valentine's Day with my truest love. Fantastic.

                   The Rings of Saturn


The difference between men and angels
                    is skin.
          The very opacity of it--
                    the way it cloaks and masks and shields
                              the secret life.
The way it swaddles the conceit of self.

The strangers seated on the bus--
          each silhouetted in frames of dirty window glass--
Each a separate planet
          with cares and bliss
          with plans and balks and foiled schemes
          with sins and random kindnesses
                    the ice, the rock, the glowing little moons
                              that are the personal, the secret self--
All orbiting like the rings of Saturn.

Each man unknowable until that moment
When skin, at last, goes dust
And we are skinless angels once again.

Even now
Reaching across the carefully silvered cloth,
          my old hand such an easy fit in yours,
Our clasp melded like braided vines
          grown thick and inseparable
                    over these worn years--
Looking across
          the roses and the amber light,
                    into eyes familiar as my own
Into the face I've watched change--
          grow imperceptibly older day by day
                    worn by touch from bonny prize
                              to treasure--
And still,
           with your secret life ringing round you--
                              you are a stranger.