It is late.

It is late, I say,
and I don't mean the time of day -

though darknes is visible as I write
and the windows rattle in their panes
as they do only at night. . .

Indeed, it is late and there seems so much to say - but I haven't the voice right now.

I could tell you about the memorial service I attended yesterday for Craig Mills - a man that I knew but not well enough. Once over six feet tall, he is now a pile of ash in a lacquer box. Sarah knew him better than I and she says we had an amazing amount in common. We are both Pisceans and writers married to older women, shy in large groups but not for want of anything to say. Well one of us is those things, anyway. Craig has gone beyond them and dwells now only in memory.

I could point out the bitter irony of the Bushmaster semi-automatic weapon manufacturer being "horrified" that their product, a killing machine, was actually used to kill people. I am, in fact, sorely tempted to rail about the responsibility the makers of guns must accept for the weapons they produce.

But it is late, as I've said
and I really ought to be in bed.