A Letter To Kristin

       It's true of course what you said: The terrible cold 
beneath those grim skies would one day drive me mad.

       You'd go daffy here. We shouldn't exist under a cloud 
cover as though it were fated,--listening for voices 
where tongues slice the mud like gladiolus in the drizzle,--grow 
pale and still. I picture you clearly as if distinct 
in a lens, wearing a lava lava among orchids opened in the warm 
shadows like a multitude of infant faces.

After leaving the Marines in 1954, Robert Lyons graduated from Edison Technical School and attended the University of Washington. He presently resides in Edmonds,-- retired and studying to be a genius.