Life had been keeping me away from the soul business of reading and writing in the past few weeks, dear shadow (and now, perhaps, really imaginary) readers. And this explains the dearth of any oil spills hitting these waters.

In the past few weeks, I have managed to make a detour to San Francisco (photos here), that city which you enter by the way of the Golden Gate, and fuilfil my fantasy to pay homage to one of the demotic figures in my literary genesis - Vikram Seth, by reading his great Pushkin-ian novel in verse "The Golden Gate" atop the Golden Gate Bridge:

The surface of the cobalt bay Is flecked white. The moister, keener October air has rinsed away The whispering mists with crisp intensity And over the opaque immensity A deliquescent wash of blue Reveals the bridge, long lost to view In summer's quilt of fog: the towers, High-built, red-gold, with their long span -The most majestic spun by man- Whose threads of steel through mists and showers, Wind, spray, and the momentous roar Of ocean storms, link shore to shore.

• this by playing hookie at the conference I was at.

And now I may be getting to move to New York in a few months. So wish me good luck and godspeed. And oh, happy Thanksgiving y'all!

[A] Sun kissing the walls This morning reminds me Of your radiance passing Over and around me through The long hours of the night, An unhinged polestar's, whose Flashy laughter I wake to find Crystalline on the bejeweled panes.

[B] After the patter of speech When I sit in the rain Washed stillness by myself Next to a blue lake, lost in thoughts As they come up for air And ripple my skin, as your fingers Do every night awake and asleep,

I begin to hear two voices walking down The avenue of years talking like two Gravelly guitars playing an intimate riff Of inside jokes, secret nicknames, mock Serious heckling, and those shimmering Moaning notes, rich with voiceless and timeless Desire that wells from their skins each day.

I run towards them, and soon take on His face that is gazing at hers (yours) In between the pauses, and saying Without saying (listen for the sharp intake Of breath here), "Death, when you come, Trick me into your ghostly embrace with This beloved face and its breathless beauty!"