Dear My Friends,

It is warm here, now though the mountains
always beautiful, across the plains, are tucked in mist.
The persimmons outside are still green on their tops
but soon we will pull them off of the tree and
they’ll no longer dry out the mouth — they’ll be sweet
and plump, and we will grow tired of them —
they cannot be cooked — and will not eat them all
and some will freeze still on the branches,
and a winter blackbird will perch outside, the peach
of the persimmon, the snow and the blackbird;
and it will eat the frozen fruit. I tell you this
because you are warm right now, where
there are no mountains, or persimmons
yellowing on trees, and although living here
is hard, sometimes, this is a beautiful thing,
worth words to my friends.