Weave, weave the music of the

leaves

So that it moves Our listenings, our loves.

Stir, ever so gently, the rustle of

the breeze

In the old trees.

Beech, maple, ash, elm. oak--

Tell over the soft idiom they

spoke

To still, to quiet air.

THESE lines by Rolfe Humphries were written in response to a TIME reader's comment on an earlier Humphries poem. The first work was commissioned by TIME and accompanied our story on the reopening of Belmont Park race track in 1968. Humphries, himself a racing buff, set down his own memories of Belmont's sights, sounds and hues. Reader Robert F. Kelley of Manhattan wrote TIME'S editors, thanking them for the poem and for "stirring the breeze of memory so that it moves a few lovely leaves on the old trees." We published the letter and Humphries read it. Shortly before his death last April, the poet composed Little Song for the Leaves and dedicated it to Reader Kelley. It appeared in his last book, Coat on a Stick (Indiana University Press).

Readers' letters constantly activate other readers' pens--sometimes in friendship, sometimes otherwise. Another type of response is elicited by this column when we report on the joys and jeopardies encountered by individual staff members in preparing stories. Routinely, old friends who have lost touch become reunited. Professors express surprise that former economics or biology students now review films or cover Asian affairs. Marriage proposals and political challenges are commonplace.

After Contributing Editor Katie Kelly reported on hippie habits, she received 1) a request to supply marijuana to a user in need, 2) an offer from a seller to help retail pot, and 3) a suggestion from state authorities that she become an undercover informer. Naturally, she declined all three. A picture of Researcher Linda Young in connection with an election story produced a sudden swain, who wrote: "I was madly in love with this girl who looks exactly like you. Anyway, she finally got married last September and I've been lost ever since. I don't know what your martial [sic] state is, but if you can write to me it would help very much." Linda could not decide whether to say that her martial state was armed or defenseless.

More recently, 6-ft. 5 1/2-in. Bill Doerner, after writing the Dec. 12 cover story on Ralph Nader, said that Nader should do something about the dearth of clothes for the tall. Within days, Doerner was besieged by manufacturers eager to go to any lengths to fit him.

Echoes of this week's cover story on a country-rock group becoming more widely known--The Band--may be diverse and resounding. Says Contributing Editor William Bender, who wrote it: "The Band appeals to an intelligent segment of this generation, many of whom have tried the freaked-out life, found it wanting, and are now looking for something gentler and more profound. I hope we'll hear from kids all over the country." Senior Editor Timothy Foote predicts that there will be regrets that, though the story deals with rock in general, TIME "has not said half enough about swamp rock, soul rock, jazz rock." Contributing Editor Jay Cocks and Researcher Molly Bowditch did much of the reporting on The Band's members. "The choice is controversial," says Molly, "because they are not unanimous favorites like the Beatles. But I've played one of their records 400 times and I still love it."

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