All human life has its seasons and cycles, and no one's personal chaos can be permanent. Winter, after all, gives way to spring and summer, though sometimes when branches stay dark and the earth cracks with ice, one thinks they will never come, that spring, and that summer, but they do, and always.

I'll wager at the end a body realizes the Lord has already shown Himself. That things as they are -- her hand circles in a gesture that gathers clouds and kites and grass and Queenie pawing earth over her bone - just what they've always seen, was seeing Him. As for me, I could leave the world with today in my eyes.

Aprils have never meant much to me, autumns seem that season of beginning, spring.

The true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilacs opening, ship lights, school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and water of existence, memory.

That's the question: is truth an illusion, or is illusion truth, or are they essentially the same? Myself, I don't care what anybody says about me as long as it isn't true.

I remember things the way they should have been.

Randolph," he said, "were you ever as young as me?" And Randolph said: "I was never so old.