I just got off the phone with Hana Smith who told me Drew Benton was cremated on September 12th. She does not know where her ashes are – or if I paid for shipment – too!

The time is 10:55 A.M. September 19th.

John Presco

EXTRA! I just got a call from Ron, and he is going to the Post Office to ship Drew’s ashes, and I should get them on Saturday!

Above is a painting of Drew done by her mother, Christine Rosamond Benton. I saw ‘Beach2’ for the first time an hour ago. Below this work of art, is my painting done in 1976.

Your Name

Posted onJanuary 19, 2014byRoyal Rosamond Press

Your Name

by Royal Rosamond

The tide was low today, my love
A cadence of the sea was wrought
In melancholy strain, and low and fraught
With whisperings of your name above
The deep sea song!
A shell that lured along the shore
Whispered; “I love you evermore!”
I wrote your name upon the sands –
Would that I traced with gentle hands –
The minor chords were wont to spell
Each syllable!
The tide is high tonight, my dear.
The rock-bound shore loves the wave
But sends it dying to its grave.
The low base notes vie with the fear
The wind send on
The all-encircling gloom
Descended o’er old ocean’s tomb!
Your name is gone tonight, my love:
The angry surge rushed in above.
It cries aloud, with sea gull’s shrill
“I love you still!”

On the Beach at Night Alone

By Walt Whitman

On the beach at night alone,

As the old mother sways her to and fro singing her husky song,

As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes and of the future.

A vast similitude interlocks all,

All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets,

All distances of place however wide,

All distances of time, all inanimate forms,

All souls, all living bodies though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,

All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,

All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,

All identities that have existed or may exist on this globe, or any globe,

All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,

This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d,

And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.