Today, I find myself feeling very sad.  Although I should say straight away that it has nothing to do with the sadness I see here.  Completely unrelated, is it.  But how you feel, or at least what you write about how you feel, is how I feel.  Just at this time.  Not always.  I have no good reason for it.  But I felt it earlier, and felt comforted to see you.

While you have been away, I have been rather ill (nothing serious, just a protracted stubborn cold which has “taken out” for weeks, much younger and stronger men than I)  It put me quite behind in my sonnet writing.  And now I have this strange feeling.  This.  Having descended over me.  I have no good reason for it.  But one or two difficult correspondences led me there, I think.

I do not presume anything regarding the way you, nor anyone else, might feel.  I do know that sometimes…   perhaps it is because I am not of the true “cyber” generation…  that I feel remote… distant…  helpless…  and perhaps also unable to comfort those who feel as I do.

I merely began writing a sonnet tonight, or rather, this morning, inspired by those correspondences.   Something regarding humility.  These were not of great consequence–these emails back and forth:  A precocious young man and a vexing but adamantly pursued area of interest; A young lady concerned with matters of faith–and my odd relationship with such matters;  A writers’ group whose kind invitation I nonetheless feel I must decline.  A few other such things…  So that now I feel myself quite melancholy.  Quite at “sixes and sevens,” as it were.

Yesterday, I found myself, finally well enough to get back to writing and so I spent a very enjoyable evening answering comments.  By no means have I gotten to the end of them, but I did make a considerable dent in them.  Still, as the night wore on, I felt I was perhaps delaying my actual work by engaging in this much more enjoyable and carefree activity.

And today, I found, quite by accident, a number of emails waiting for me–they were in the wrong place and so I might have missed them altogether, as they were sent to the address I have which is set up to collect automatic responses and such other annoyances that blogging generates–and stubbornly refuse to be turned off.  I believe I have gone a good deal further in see that people find and use the correct public email when they wish to send me some correspondence which, for what ever reason, they prefer not to appear on the blogoshpere; but I have found that no matter how technically adept one might be, it can sometimes be most difficult to ferret out such things.  Particularly on wordpress.com where one has no control over the code nor any database access.

In any case, In answering comments yesterday, I came upon a number of yours which of course were “404” if I tried to respond to them.  Still that led me to your gravatar link and I noticed there was a new image there… haunting and somehow befitting of your new site.  And then this morning, not long ago, I found your nickname among the handful of new “follows” that had come along in the last hours.

I felt happy to see someone familiar, although clearly I was well on my way to feeling most unhappy.  But following the link to your new site, I found your latest work to somehow fit my melancholy.

There are doubtless many grammatical errors and omissions in the above, however, in all sincerity, I truly do feel a bit too melancholy to go back through it all.  I will however quote this in my “reflections” sub-blog, and perhaps I will correct it later if and when the mood comes upon me.

There comes a time,

when all strength is lost.

When efforts collapse,

and people pay a cost…

Read the rest here: