I was working on this poem/prayer with an eye to making it into an Italian aria.  (For a practical reason that I won't get into at the moment.)  It's from a quite amazing book called "A Soldier of the Great War', by Mark Helprin.  A friend and neighbor of mine translated it  for me.  Last night somebody asked me what I was doing, and I read her the thing, in both English and Italian.  In English, it reads  "Dear God, I beg of you only one thing.  Let me join the ones I love.  Carry me to them, unite me with them, let me see them, let me touch them. And let life and death run, run together like a song"

In Italian, it's more beautiful:  "Caro Dio, ti chiedo solo un favore.  Fami essere con i miei amati. Portami da loro, riuniscimi con loro, che possa vederli, che possa toccarli. E che possa la vita corre, corre un come canto."

But somewhere in the recitation of these simple words, I just lost it, and found myself simply crying, embarrassingly,  at the bar of the fancy restaurant, surrounded by strangers, just overcome.  I excused myself by saying that I missed my little boy, which I do, desperately, but I think its more than that.  This has been happening to me more and more lately.  It happened to me again today, in my car, when I heard a slow, very sad solo slide guitar rendition of "America The Beautiful" Suddenly I found myself in traffic, raw hot tears choking my vision.   I mentioned this to a friend of mine, David Kitay,  today, and he said he's having the same experience.  I'm trying to get a handle on the locus of this strange, ambient grief.   Today, talking to David, I blurted out something, surprising both of us.  I said, "you know, I love this country.  I love the ideas that birthed it.  I love the idea of equality, and of justice for all.  I love its mountains, and its streams... And I feel that all of them, the ideas, the streams--- that theyre slipping away, being replaced with something much darker, more unjust, less generous, colder, angrier, less gracious. more fearful. Greedier.  More polluted. "  Or something along those lines.  I wonder how many of you feel these things?  Am I alone in this?

yrs,

David