1) Old friend, thank you for meeting me. Thank you for the support. I smell the one evil breath of people who speak ill of me. But your voice stays with me, and I stay with it. Let it be now a whisper in the din of low hisses and the thunders of angered gods. Let it be now a mere parting of lips. Let it vanish, thin air out into the heavy foam and dark cloud. Yet I hear you, and the moment is not lost on me.

2) Clasp my hand though the distance comes to take you into its promise. I am here for them, only you truly understand this. I am here where I am, at the foot of the mountain, among the measurements of grain, and beneath the scrutiny of profiteering powers. I am exactly where I want to be, with the budding youth, they who live now in the very moment in their lives which in my life I forsook.

3) You know the gravity of my hand. I myself fear it. I fear it more than I fear them. Take the hand and imbue it with your wisdom. With your prayer if you really have to, but your wisdom, foremost. I have not hurt it enough, see? It still moves. I must batter it every so often, right down against the floor one time, and my feet took off too. I almost dislocated my shoulder. It can only write so many letters to you.

4) I do not seek their loyalty. I don't need their word, but if they give it, they best be true to it. For I will honor it only as much as they do.

5) They disdain that I call them little, yet they see not that I don't play their egos up to be of some service to me. All I want is to give them all there is I can and not hear from them ever again. Not until they themselves hold my child in the pedagogic thrall. And then, my friend, I hope they will not ask her for her loyalty. And I hope they cut her down to size before they ever attempt to show her the ropes.

6) And pray to your good God I keep this hand to myself if I can't build anything with it.

7) Bye, old, old friend. Forgive. I'm off to sleep, man.