Dear Gemma,

Summer is quickly fading
into Fall on this side of the country.
How does it look on your west coast?
The air is biting us now and I miss
the warmth you surely still have.
Yesterday I drove down 287 and
looking out my window the eyes of thousands
of aspen trees flitted through my vision,
their trunks drowning in a mosaic
of bright red, orange and yellow.
Out my car window, I spotted with
utmost horror a line of three or four raccoons,
absolutely flattened to the ground. It was a
terrible and peculiar sight, but I couldn’t help but think
of your unusual love for the creatures and their fluffy
striped tails and dark glassy eyes.
Oh, it also reminded me of
the story of your eccentric fourth grade teacher,
which I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget.
Did he really bring in animal sacrifices
For the “sake of education?”
I honestly barely believe you!
Did you ever ask him (or was it a her?) –
Why the Tongvas? What drove his ridiculous
obsession? That he sacrificed weeks, months
of learning math, science, history,
allowed you to fall behind your peers,
for the sake of carrying rat skulls on
sticks and empathizing with the natives
during the Spanish Colonization?
You quite genuinely wondered if it was
a simple tactic of traumatization.
I guess we will never truly know as the
teacher is long gone, only vivid memories
of distressing moments during your
year as Shasonga Falls remaining. 
Sometimes, in the hope of some
excitement, I wish my classes
and teachers shared the insanity of yours.
Here, everything remains utterly
the same. The weather
is the only thing shifting. 
Now, looking out my bedroom window,
a flurry of warm leaves
whirls towards the ground.

Your good friend, Elizabeth