Sylvia Manning finds a poem she wrote in Barton in 1973, to Albert Huffstickler.

To see a (not very good) picture of Albert Huffstickler (Huff), you can go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Huffstickler. 

There are several websites where you can read his poems.  Here's the poem Sylvia Manning found today in old papers, one she wrote in Barton in 1973:


to Huff

I say I cannot write
but to you of course it's true
that there is blue flame
beneath an orange coffee pot
and to you it will continue
to be important that sometimes
in the long October morning
a cow brays
outside a city dwelling
as though to say

                       'since I'm here, and you,
                       another, you will know me.
                       I don't care how long it takes.
                       Your morning will always
                       have blue flames and
                       warmth in small cities.

                       (Friends taught.)

                       My mama taught me to make noise.
                       I'm like you.'

and to this day you are
my coffee memory.

                                                                   Barton, Vermont
                                                                                                                            October 24, 1973



(Now Sylvia is amused that she thought of Barton as a small city; and now Albert Huffstickler has been dead more than 17 years.)