Hand That On Parting Squeezes Your Shoulder,

Was It Only By Dreaming Or Writing That I Could Find Out What I Thought?

The Apparent Ease Of California Life Is An Illusion, And Those Who Believe The Illusion Will Live Here In Only The Most Temporary Way.

As It Happened, I Didn't Grow Up To Be The Kind Of Woman Who Is The Heroine In A Western, And Although The Men I Have Known Have Had Many Virtues And Have Taken Me To Live In Many Places I Have Come To Love, They Have Never Been John Wayne, And They Have Never Taken Me To The Bend In The River Where The Cottonwoods Grow. Deep In That Part Of My Heart Where Artificial Rain Forever Falls, That Is Still The Line I Want To Hear.

And I Have Learned Now To Live With It, Learned When To Expect It, How To Outwit It, Even How To Regard It, When It Does Come, As More Friend Than Lodger. We Have Reached A Certain Understanding, My Migraine And I.

Any Compulsion Tries To Justify Itself.