MISS RUTH LYMAN

Who was possessed of many
amiable qualities, the joy of
her Parents, the delight of
her connexions, and
beloved of all, if youth,
if virtue deserve a tear,
reader, drop it here,
when the engraving of this stone
informs you that she left
her weeping friends in the
23d year of her Age, June 22 1783

Old 91-Corridor stock; her great-nephew became friendly with Emily Dickinson, he would take her on his knee in converse while courting her sister. Her stone was cut from Connecticut's coarse silicate tissue and imaged by a carver there before being brought out to salty Maine. Within a few years the inscribed text will fall away; a light tap would do it now.

My brother and I swam the Dniester, he beat me to its nether shore but I beat him back. Little lateen-rigged boatlets skittered buoyantly past us, manned by boys. I felt as good as I've felt in weeks. The sunlight crutched my flawy vision such that I could almost read the "Karadeniz Çayı" sign in Bender from where we lay on the east bank. My brother got a passing tsigane to back him on the tanbur as he sang (for my benefit, bless him!) that Canceaux song. Then there was rose spoon-sweet for all from a tidy treat-vendor who cleaned his little silver koutali in a cup of saltwater after each of our mouthings.

Paschal joy is imminent. After great pain a formal feeling comes. The beloved fellow-creature is near, the one with whom alone I've followed creation further in and farther on. My song. Three darts into the heart of Absalom, while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak. Joseph Sykes's stones stand hard, soft schist from salt-swamps, waiting for sun to come athwart them and thicken their lines with shadow to animate the faces figured there. Like a slide quiet in its slot before the bulb's switched on. I love the ocean, I love the linguage, I love the melodies and the countermelodies. Where did you go. Under a rosebush that dies back every winter. I miss the place of rest, you, Sofferetti, your lap. Where is your lap? You are continually dismantling it, forming it up again every time you sit down.