LOVE IS A LETTER BURNING IN A HIGH WIND is a chronicle in sequential open field poems of a second visit to Turkey (the first recorded in formal ghazals), and to the glorious atmospheres of Sufi Master Mevlana Rumi and his gnostic teacher, Shams. Included are three extended narrative poems in the thematic style of Rumi's Masnawi, undertaken with no plot or source other than spontaneous inspiration. characterized by talking animals and "decapitated" watermelons. Ecstatic lyricism and sweet apprehension the impulse and goal to glorify and praise this swift life and its Originator and Sustainer: Sometimes I get tired of all this talk about God/ and I just want to go and sit under a tree// but then the tree starts talking to me about God/ and we find ourselves in another conversation