Flipside Of Sadness Comments

I say truly I'm happy for you, Leah! Somewhere Whitman wrote WHEN YOU TOUCH THIS BOOK YOU TOUCH A MAN. I hope you don't think me presumptuous in saying after reading your poems - as you write them - for many weeks (Has it been a full year? I'm not sure.) , I have a sense of your life and its unfoldings. Your resilience and embrace of experience are wonderful traits! Your involvement in the world is committed and generous. And you don't complain: the past you absorb, the future you anticipate, the present you bustle in. And now in this poem you bravely and sincerely set out in a new direction, at least that's the impression I took from it. You seem to be aware of the fragility of things, that you are after all living on the flipside of sadness, not in some utopian realm. But it's the adventure of life, the challenges that motivate you, and your writing makes it so real and vivid and so rewarding. I once had a friend who sought freedom and adventure, and he closed his letters with EXCELSIOR! ! and you don't complain: you're mmitted and generous.

Thoughts and future shine in this marvelous context. Wisely penned....10