"Write - about the wind tonight, the intelligence of the darkness, the opacity of grief, the shape of her breast - because these are small, good things and they need to be witnessed. Write them because writing them reminds you and whoever may listen why we live at all. Write because it's a practice the world seems to want and civility depends on. Write to keep in practice for telling the truth. We may need people who are good at it;  it seems to be going out of style. Write because, who knows, you may hear and speak a phrase that just may save a life or change a mind or start a worthwhile rumour.  Write well and write often because it is a way of playing the instrument each of us has been given, that voice of yours, of keeping it alive and humming.