The morning light of late November shoots through the windows like a laser, throwing itself past the interruptions of windows panes and blinds to leave a geometrically exact grid on the wall. The pencil-filled mug-shaped shadow is a perfect silhouette. The glass in the frame on the wall glints with sun so bright I have to narrow my eyes to look.

Outside the window, on the narrow strip of field grass mown into a reasonable facsimile of yard, dew creates a mirror on each of the palm-sized sycamore leaves whose grips on narrow branches have been loosened by wind and gravity and, then, just as I begin wondering what the mirrors reflect, thin clouds gauze over the sun and the leaves became just leaves.

Something about the scene makes me remember that 34 years ago this week – the week of Than

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