Merely a Mirror on the Wall?

Mere Mirror?

Amazon

and here

Some time back, I read Martin Seay's novel The Mirror Thief, which I delighted in, so I left a message of appreciation on Seay's website for his having written such a wonderful book, and I shared one of my own poems with him that I thought he might appreciate:

Souvenirs

You look upon the world with antique eyes,
through intense lens, with more than innocence,
but only in this moment circumscribed
by shelves and shelves of other people's lives.
Let's peer into this mirror, you and I,
clear through the old and darkened glass. What past
perhaps reflects obscurely back on one
behind the silver-surfaced other side,
who gazes here with solemn, antique eyes?

He didn't respond to for a while, but he then finally did respond, quite graciously:

Hi Jeffrey --

My name is Martin Seay, and I wrote a book called THE MIRROR THIEF that you read . . . oh, probably a year ago.

I'm writing because my website -- which has been on the blink -- JUST NOW coughed up the message that you sent upon finishing the book.

Thanks very much for sharing "Souvenirs"! I enjoyed it, and look forward to following the link you sent shortly. It's got some of that incense-shrouded eeriness that one finds in Yeats and Coleridge and Mallarmé, and for which I'm a sucker.

Please accept my apologies for the much-delayed response, and my thanks for reading and for taking the time to write. I'm very gratified that you enjoyed the book!

Hope this finds you well,

Martin

Touched by his (entirely unnecessary) apology, I wrote back to thank him:

Dear Martin,

Thank you for writing back. I suspect your life is rather filled with all sorts of things, so I appreciate your email. I hope you're well and that your book is selling as it deserves.

Since "Souvenirs" was to your taste, you might also appreciate this little lyric:

Vampire

Fine frost that laces window panes,
the icy-blooded vampire’s veins;
seductive, sensual spoor of death,
its frozen, freezing undead breath;
one cold, controlled, alluring art,
its solitary lover’s heart.

There's no mirror in this one, but vampires avoid mirrors anyway, so one of them had to go.

Yours,

Jeffery

PS Note that my name is with "-ery." Everyone has trouble with it . . .

Good to see that some writers write back . . .