.................................
Dearest and Most Wise Agnieszka,

In fact I have often thought that the art of letter writing -- which to me and everyone I know was completely dead -- is being revived. And I think how very unisolated Emily Dickinson and people like her were -- how much can be conveyed and how many deep contacts can be made. And I think that we are closer to her now -- even in our modern world -- because of our separateness and physical isolations. Connected by mail. Sitting alone writing, writing. A bunch of modern Emilies -- she would have loved the internet.

With Deepest Regards for Your Excellence I Remain, Kathryn Speed Hodges (Kim)

 
.................................
Modern Emilies
.................................

We are all Emilies
in a more electronic fashion
with mail and phone
reaching out in messages for muses
from darkened separate rooms
long-distance love affairs
hoping for an Emerson
but in all this quickness
something fails
we have come too close
now endless bickering
and no formality of cursive script
to cloak our ragged selves
or blotting paper and pots of ink
to slow our thoughts
words collapse
in terse short lines
all charm and brilliance
ended --
and no face seen.

I still recall
your soft-silk voice across the lines
like Alexander Godunov
murmuring in my ear.

.................................
Kim Hodges
.................................

 
Copyright © Kim Hodges
March 1996

...a poem in this room by Clara Sylph...
the Marek Katchina...
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