In this spring of 1968 with the last
third of the Twentieth Century
travelling like a dream toward its
end, it is the time to plant books,
to pass them into the ground, so that
flowers and vegetables may grow
from these pages.

My friends worry and they tell me
about it. They talk of the world
ending, of darkness and disaster.
I always listen gently, and then
say: No, it's not going to end. This
is only the beginning, as this book
is only a beginning.

I've decided to live in a world where
books are changed into thousands
of gardens with children playing
in the gardens and learning the gen-
tle ways of green growing things.

I pray that in thirty-two years
passing that flowers and vegetables
will water the Twenty-First Cen-
tury with their voices telling that
they were once a book turned by
loving hands into life.

I thank the energy, the gods and the
theater of history that brought
us here to this very moment with
this book in our hands, calling
like the future down a green and
starry hall.