missing you

Dear RW,

I settled in this place, by your good graces, to live deliberately, insofar as one such as I is capable; yet tonight I find myself so awash in thought that deliberation is all I am capable of, and living barely enters into life. The woods are not responsible for this, for indeed I think they naturally encourage a living sort of life, but the pond itself: therein lies the rub.

God and Nature may be the architects of this place, but you are its custodian. We never discussed the pond, and so I assumed I was to disturb it as little as possible; living in this way, I had been comfortable for some time before a foreign urge overwhelmed me, and I strode into the pond –– just so far, understand, as to wet my toes in the silt. I have waded no deeper, though often the shore has seemed too downward-sloping, as if it meant to pitch me into the depths.

Since that peculiar day, however, my evenings in the town have been colored by a kind of melancholy. Upon stopping by your home, I have been informed that you are elsewhere, or unwell, or too hard at work to allow a moment’s distraction, and I have not seen you once.

A man cannot help but wonder if some misstep, perhaps resulting in damp feet, has led him awry with a friend; at once, a man cannot know unless he is told, and until such a proclamation, he becomes a hopelessly lifeless creature, too vexed step outside, even when the rhodora blooms.

My good fellow, I do hope to speak with you again soon, and whatever you think of me, the squatter in your woods, I wish you the very best.

-HD