Leslie Roberts

I spent the last two days teaching classes at the Environmental Center, a nine-acre preserve that is time capsule, poetry text, and just a bit of paradise on the edge of campus. This place is sacred ground for me. It's hard to fully convey this to students, but the sentiment gets through at times. Besides the beauty and joy it brings students to spend some time outside, I love coming to the center because it reminds me of the beauty of all that is passing, all that is fragile--life itself. South Florida is the most vulnerable of ecosystems, so much of it compromised beyond repair, all of it precious and beautiful. Before leaving today, I walked by a plaque dedicated to the memory of my friend Leslie Roberts and I recalled Stanley Kunitz' question in the poem "The Layers": How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? I don't fully know the answer but sense that part of the reconciliation is in paying attention and being grateful for all.