Welcome to diode’s second anniversary party, where we’ll be serving virtual chocolate cake. We’ll pull the cork from the virtual champagne and fill your glasses until they overflow. We can all put on hats, break out the noisemakers, play loud music and dance the dabkeh all night long. 
 
Or maybe we can just sit quietly, in solitude, and read the astonishing poems collected here in diode, vol. 3 no. 1.  And that will be celebration enough.
 
Making this issue, this occasion, even more special for us is the inclusion of so many former contributors. We think this means that they found their experience with diode a positive one. We’re proud of that, and grateful that they’ve come back to help us celebrate.
 
On a personal note, in the preface to the spring 2009 issue of diode, we spoke about the community that diode helped create, and how important that community is to us, the editors, living in Qatar, a small and somewhat isolated country in the Arabian Gulf.  Well, that community has become even more important.  Jeff has returned to Richmond, Virginia, and though the two of us still work together to produce diode, albeit long distance, the two-person community we formed in Qatar—where we were next-door neighbors, and office mates—has taken a hit.  So stay with us.  We need you.