for Kaaren Abra Bock
Other people change, you think, but you are always you. It’s too simple to say things change and they stay the same. Love, and the loss of love, and other things, change us, but then it’s still we who change. If you knew me as well as I do, you wouldn’t think it strange I’ve done the things I’ve done. When I’m no longer there to show you the way I am, I don’t think I’ll show new friends a way I never was; when you’re no longer here for me to see your beauty I won’t think your beauty’s lost.
29 January 1979