Mary Lyn,

Go to Sleep, Little Farm* arrived two days ago,
and I am so much enjoying, as always, your poetry
and the accompanying art.

What a great opening line–“Somewhere a bee.”
And the weaver beaver, the shadows tucking a house in,
those chickens roosting where they will, and evening
“speckled with stars like the spots on a fawn,”
and oh do I understand how
“a story goes to sleep in a book.”

And the art matching the creatures’ sleep
with the young girl’s, the clock ticking page after page,
mother and father always near.

This week especially I wish all of us the inexplicable joy
of finding (receiving) the words, the only right ones.

Such a nice dream to sleep on.

Bob

*Ray, Mary Lyn. Go To Sleep, Little Farm. Art by Christopher Silas Neal, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014.