{"id":97457,"date":"2016-04-27T14:58:31","date_gmt":"2016-04-27T18:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=97457"},"modified":"2016-04-27T15:04:54","modified_gmt":"2016-04-27T19:04:54","slug":"birthday-letter-from-south-carolina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/27\/birthday-letter-from-south-carolina\/","title":{"rendered":"Birthday Letter from South Carolina"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Augustus Paul Trouche, The Hundred Pines, James Island, South Carolina<\/i>, c. nineteenth century.<\/p><\/div>\n

Jean Valentine\u2019s poem \u201cBirthday Letter from South Carolina\u201d appeared in our Fall 1981 issue<\/a>. Valentine is eighty-two today. Her most recent collection is<\/em>\u00a0Shirt in Heaven<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

for Sarah, 21<\/small><\/em><\/p>\n

Yellow apple
Star inside the apple
seed star\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 quiet<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Walking up the Cummings\u2019 quiet red-earth road,
I think of you there, near the white-
ridged harbor: in a yellow kerchief,
in the blowing sunlight, you walk
along the concrete of the holding world.<\/p>\n

You hold it all to your chest, the blue day, night,
long coffee, long talk, \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2014You hold
your kind, stumbling, sure
life in your hands.
Indian cloth, the goose-neck desk light \u2026<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Basho spent the first twenty years of his life
apprenticing, his second twenty years
raising his family, the third twenty years
walking. Walking here<\/p>\n

today I saw him, Basho, at the far edge of the field
of winter wheat; and you alongside him;
his long black and white steps moving
not away; alongside.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jean Valentine\u2019s poem \u201cBirthday Letter from South Carolina\u201d appeared in our Fall 1981 issue. Valentine is eighty-two today. 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