To my true family at Quarry Hill (10-01-1997)

Thank you for all of the many and most meaningful things that you have done for me during the last 30 years . You blow my mind consistently still. I shall be eternally grateful, and do love all of you much more than you can ever imagine. I have never found , much less been accepted into, real community except at Quarry Hill.
    In 1967, I read and still remember a poem by Shin Pen, the wondrous poet and founder of the Shin or Pure Land school of Buddhism, which expresses my feelings for you much better than I ever could express them. It is as follows:

"Precious memories
When I reach the Blessed Pure Land
 and have my final birth,
The very first thoughts that I shall have
Will be of friends on earth."

Thank you!
Love,
Dillard

Dillard K. Henderson of North Carolina
is, and for many years has been, Poet Laureate of Quarry Hill.