Slender Volume

Circulated as a gift
Among his personal acquaintances:

Character biographies,
Territory fact sheets,
Drawings, artifacts,
And plot explorations.

I wondered,
Standing there in his den,
With the slender volume in my hands,
How my grandfather had come to write about

His mother, and their departure
From Kent. Many years later
He wrote to her on a whim,
Leading to a series
Of phone conversations
That became the raison d’aetre.

Bound in the white and purple
Of Amherst College,
So modestly introduced by its editors
That it attracted little attention.

With an etching on the title page
Of a chapel in a valley.

Wrappers are in place
And edges untouched.

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