---
title: Bob Valentine 1946-2007
categories:
- personal
content-tags:
- personal
- personal-quotes
---

> This is just a place:
> we go around, distanced,
> yearly in a star's
>
> atmosphere, turning
> daily into and out of
> direct light and
>
> slanting through the
> quadrant seasons: deep
> space begins at our
>
> heels, nearly rousing
> us loose: we look up
> or out so high, sight's
>
> silk almost draws us away:
> this is just a place:
> currents worry themselves
>
> coiled and free in airs
> and oceans: water picks
> up mineral shadow and
>
> plasm into billions of
> designs, frames: trees,
> grains, bacteria: but
>
> is love a reality we
> made here ourselves--
> and grief--did we design
>
> that--or do these,
> like currents, whine
> in and out among us merely
>
> as we arrive and go:
> this is just a place:
> the reality we agree with,
>
> that agrees with us,
> outbounding this, arrives
> to touch, joining with
>
> us from far away:
> our home which defines
> us is elsewhere but not
>
> so far away we have
> forgotten it:
> this is just a place.
>
> - [A. R. Ammons][1], In Memoriam Mae Noblitt

   [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_Randolph_Ammons
