I write line by line, by the sound and the weight and the music of the words.

As before, there is a great silence, with no end in sight. The writer surrenders, listening.

I wish I had more time to write.

I write line by line, by the sound and the weight and the music of the words.

Smoke veils the air like souls in drifting suspension, declining the war's insistence everyone move on.

The writer's first affinity is not to a loyalty, a tradition, a morality, a religion, but to life itself, and to its representation in language.

Towns change; they grow or diminish, but hometowns remain as we left them.