July 17, 2020

Dear Nikola, 

Thank you for your letter.
I've been thinking about you,
and I'm much relieved and gratified
to receive confirmation of my wish 
that you should be well.
I have been putting some "finishing touches"
on what I had planned to be an opera libretto, 
but what will probably end up 
as a languishing unread closet drama. 
I like to work on it, even if has no public future.
Just last night, it occurred to me, how I might continue.

The title of the existing play "Kroetenrettung" 
alludes to an environmental project of saving toads 
who need to cross a busy highway .
on their annual spring pilgrimage to their spawning grounds. 
I leaned about this from German friends of mine, 
specifically the daughter of my 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade 
teacher and her husband, who each spring 
collaborate in building a fence along the highway, 
which causes the toads, 
instead of being killed trying to cross, 
tumble into pails inserted into the ground, 
pails in which they are then carried across the highway 
to safety on the other side.