Letters from the Commons are essays, attempts at thoughtfulness, written for my grown children, very much as a calling after them, a wait-but-I-forgot-to-tell-you-this wave from the porch. Maybe there are other children grown who can find in these some parts of the common conversation, something to speak of to each other or to children of their own, something of ourselves among all of the others, our relatives all, in what was and may yet again be the commons of the living world.