Saturday, November 27, 2010

Christmas Card

Once upon a time, in the town of H______,

A tiger appeared in the streets.

It was mid-December; decorations were up;

Snow came down in sheets.

Dogs barked. Cats stayed indoor by the fire.

People listened to the Christmas carol station.

The tiger heard the barks. She listened to the wind.

She heard only desolation.

The tiger came to a statue of Buddha.

It was in Tom Evans’s back yard.

It curled up in the snow and fluffed up its fur.

The sky grew clear. It was like a Christmas card.

That’s all we’ll get tonight:

snow storm, then clearing skies.

A story that doesn’t end.

No one ever gets wise.

That’s okay. Let’s imagine,

that for this moment we all belong

to each other. Let’s listen

to the next and final song.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

excerpt from a letter

fanpop.com

Symbolically speaking, I am Dorothy, and Glinda, the Good Witch, is my mother. Glinda in her deeds is always helpful to Dorothy, and sometimes is crucially so, but mostly she's not around and Dorothy, sometimes terrified, has to work things out for herself.


I just wrote a long letter to my sister. Then I had a memory of my dear Mrs. Sullivan, a woman in her sixties when I knew her, I was between the ages of five and twelve. I remember her showing me a handwritten letter from her brother. I commented on how long it looked, and she said that he often wrote her letters that were longer; that she had received one that was over thirty pages long. I was mystified.

Now I see how it would be possible, easily, given that five or six of his hand-written letters on smaller than standard-sized paper would have fit onto one page of single-spaced, word-processed pages.

An excerpt from my letter, in response to my sister's having expressed interest in what living with my mother had been like. My mother died when my sister was two, and I was twenty-one.

a. I’m not sure what age I am, but sometime in adolescence. I walk in the house from school. Gabby, our maid for many years, is there behind the kitchen counter-island. I don’t want it to be Gabby behind the island, I want it to be Mom. Oh well. I go up to the room I share with Quent. I listen to Bob Dylan on headphones while lying on my bed. I go downstairs to see what’s happening. Mom has come home and is taking her before-dinner nap. Waah, I want my mom.

b. I’m in early adolescence. I’m mad at the Catholic Church and Mom both. She is doing some kind of kitchen thing. I say, in a whiny, contentious way, “How could Adam and Eve have eaten the apple? For the sake of one apple, they brought so much, so much suffering into the world!” Mom—we’re in the walk-in pantry at this point—says something like “well I don’t understand why they ate the apple,” and then continues—and this next part I remember in a more word for word way, although I know memory is a trickster—“but I can’t really blame them, because I’m pretty sure I would have eaten the apple if I had been in their place.”

I was stopped in my mental tracks. How could this be true? My mother was the most virtuous person I knew. I was out of my depth, I could tell. I stopped being a brat, for a moment, and drifted off to try to take in what she had just said. Now, as I write this, I find her response, as I have since, surprisingly honest, surprisingly profound. You see what I mean about her being a seeker, the way you’re a seeker? I could provide other examples. By the way, I, knowing me, now think that if I had been in Adam and Eve’s place, I would have eaten the apple, too.

c. This is before adolescence. The other kids are watching the annual TV airing of the movie The Wizard of Oz, always a special occasion in the life of the kids in the family. I decide, though, that I’d rather not watch. I love the peace and quiet and sense of safety of having my brothers and sisters nearby but contained (in this case by their watching the movie) with me free to drift, untethered. I decide to do my homework. I set myself up, with a sense of luxury, at the dining room table, and start in. At some point Mom sails quietly in, and asks, “You don’t feel like watching the movie?” I say no. She is bemused. She says, “Can I get you anything?” I wonder—this is a scenario that doesn’t come up often. “Maybe a glass of chocolate milk?” she says, and I nod my head, feeling that nothing could be more perfect than my mother bringing me a glass of chocolate milk. She sails out, sails back in with the milk, kisses me on the top of the head, sails out, without another word.

Something like that would keep me going, thinking that the world was all right, for weeks and weeks. She didn’t have time or opportunity for many such moments, and had to divide such moments up among her many children. But they’re what we all remember.

d. I’m off at college. We’ve been corresponding, and although she doesn’t talk about her inner life, and writes about her and the family’s outer-life in a surface-y kind of way, we feel in touch. After the storms of my adolescence, and the difficulty for her of my relationship with my high school girlfriend, (my girlfriend drove her crazy—that’s another story) she is so pleased and grateful that I’ve become, at college, a good boy, who gets good grades, who finds himself a college job without anyone asking him too, who has a nice, different quiet girlfriend too far away for me to sleep with pre-maritally; she is grateful. Now I’m home for vacation. I’m in the big bedroom (not used by a child at this point), next to her and dad’s, doing some schoolwork, and she comes in, having asked if I mind if she does some sewing—her machine is there, along the same wall as the window I’m facing. After a little, she starts to tell me something about a friend of hers, someone I’ve known all my life. I am surprised at her frankness and specificity, at the complexity and offhand shrewdness of what she says. (I wish I remember what it was she said). I realize that she’s talking to me like an equal, like a friend. I am thrilled, but also too shocked to say anything in reply.

I realize now that she had a way of saying such things, off-handedly, maybe while folding laundry, just before moving off, say to drop off the different kids’ clothes on their respective dressers. Do you know what she once said? “I wonder if that Sylvia is waiting for me to die so she can marry Dad.” But here’s the kicker—she said it in the most calm, good-humored way imaginable. She liked Sylvia, who was Dad’s secretary at the time, very much, and felt completely unthreatened by her. (Sylvia liked Mom very much, too, as did everyone who knew her, I believe.) This was way before Mom died, way before she had the aneurisms that caused her death, though she died so young. I believe she had no inkling that Dad and Sylvia had in fact had or were in fact having an affair. She certainly had no inkling that she herself was in fact going to die. She had no idea that Sylvia would indeed, in a sense, wait for Dad to marry her, and that that marriage would take place. If there is a heaven and Mom lives there retaining her while-alive self, both of which ideas I’m afraid I highly doubt, I’m sure that she approves of Dad’s and Sylvia marriage and relationship, and that she observed Dad’s relationships after her but before his present one with Sylvia with sorrow, empathy, and patience.

So I have the sorrow of knowing that Mom started to open up and talk to me in a thrilling way—and then died shortly afterward. The exact same thing with Cindy: we found a way to talk to each other that was so fun and rich, and just after we did so—she died. On the other hand, Mom and Cindy remain rich presences in my mind, decades later, so there’s a big blessing.

Wow, I had a lot to say on that subject.


Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Creatures



animalsintheworld.com

Having Wakened at Five A.M. I Encounter and Think About Creatures

Poking up from the kitchen sink's drain, a big mouse's rump
Makes me jump.
Outside, an unidentifiable sound
Makes me turn around.
On the wrong side of the screen, a wasp-like thing:
I fear its sting.
The thought of the nearby bear, its track spotted by Larry, makes me fearful
But also cheerful.
In the front yard, a moth's fluttering dance
Has a seemingly unnecessary elegance.
Did anything enter in the night through the door we left open to the shed?
Dawn, please wake up. Don't stay in bed.
Now the sun's good and up. Birds call.
I'm no longer nervous at all.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

The Philtrum

the heliosgallery.com

Near where the words come from,

through which come the vibrations of a hum,
it has a funny name: the philtrum.

Everyone knows the nose
and mouth, how they open and close.
Everyone talks about the eye, a vortex like a rose.

How many even know the name of the philtrum?
An unassuming kind of plectrum
in the court-orchestra of the kingdom

of the face,
that place
that for humans is the center of meaning and grace.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Dear Joe

http://farmerwife.blogspot.com/

Dear Joe,
Everything at home is fine, except Minnie came home with a torn, bloody ear and the weather's been so hot the candles are melting. The day lilies just bloomed. Mama said I could get my picture at DeSouza's so I'll have another one to send soon.
Mama and Papa say hello. Don't be lonely. Tell me about your life there if you want to.
Love,
Rita
P.S. It's okay to call me honey.

young persons' writing class

http://wvuenglish.blogspot.com/

Elizabeth writes a detective story:
a "kids' detective" wins herself glory.
Zoe describes middle school ins and outs,
Friendships broken, humiliation, routs.
When Eliza's fantasy muscle flexes,
People tumble through worlds of charms and hexes.
Diana's heroine is suicidal, an anorect,
lovelorn and lovable, like Juliet.
Linden write grown-up science fiction
in careful, imagery-laden diction.
Sasha won't show me what she's writing.
I hope she's winning the battle she's fighting.


Saturday, August 14, 2010

After Playing Dictionary


A newt
played the flute.
He applied portamento
while playing lento.
Eucaine
seemed to spread through his brain.
He thought, "I bless,
I confess; I bless, I confess; I bless . . ."
He imagined he was the snell
between fishhook and line; cool water, green light; he was well.

How to Make a CIT Feel Loved


for K.H.

Make him wear bright blue gloves,

name a chord for him,

find out who he loves,

find a good anagram.

Parse the false from true.

Learn from him patience.

Surprise him, it’s not hard to do;

Let the writing commence.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The Ugliness of Boxers


http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boxer_dog.jpg

I read about ugly animals in the Times: the star-nosed mole, the vampire bat. It made me think of my brother's dog, a boxer named Cassie. Boxers are grotesque. Cassie's smooshed face makes her face look like that of a giant bat. When she lies down to be petted she, like other dogs, rolls onto her back. Her flews (those upper lips that hang down pendulously) fold downward on account of gravity, and her bright pink gums stand out against the blackness of her flews in an unworldly, impossible-seeming way. When she runs around, saliva hangs down from her flews in droolly ropes.

I love Cassie. I love her more because of her ugliness, not less. Others love boxers too; many people acquire them, though they, like me, have no need of a fighting dog (boxers were bred to fight other dogs).

What an odd business, to love something for its ugliness. Maybe Cassie's ugliness brings out my compassion, my nurturing protectiveness, because the ugliness seems like a form of vulnerability.

Meanwhile, my twelve-year-old nephew posted a series of photos on Facebook of him and his siblings and Cassie. The photographer is expert, my nieces and nephews good-looking, the setting pristine and elegant. My eyes can't keep away from Cassie.

anagram poems

http://www.wordtravels.com/Travelguide/Countries/Senegal/Map

Angels (2)

Senegal's gales sang ageless glee.
A sea's glass angles eagles see.
Legless seals engage slag.
A gang gleans a gag.

Vowels

Vessels solve loss.
Wool sleeves evolve.
Owls lose voles.
Love solves loss.
Wolves low woe.
We wove vowels.

Monday, August 9, 2010

Swimming


I'm going to see my girlfriend in the only way I can think of. I am swimming across the lake. I started after my father started to snore--maybe eleven p.m. If he wakes up and finds me gone, I will get into trouble. I don't know how long it will take me to swim across. It's about two miles, I've been told. An hour? I don't know if I can swim for an hour. I'm not thinking about having to swim back. If I'm late, it wont be so bad, I'll tell my father I went out for an early morning swim and went out further than I should have.
Libby doesn't know I'm coming. I'll throw a pebble at her window. She'll wake up, come to the window. She'll see me and come down. What if she doesn't wake up? If she doesn't, she doesn't.
My muscles are tired now. I'm not going to think about it. I still have a long way. Instead I'll say something encouraging to myself. Oh--Libby--I'm--coming. One word per stroke.
Oh--Libby--I'm--coming.
The moon. What was that? Snapping turtles in the lake. Keep moving. Keep kicking.
Can I my feet reach the ground now? No.
Oh--Libby--I'm--coming.
I fall onto the beach, a little dizzy. It feels very comfortable there. The gritty sand against my cheek feels good. Maybe I'll sleep. No, mustn't sleep.
She woke up after the tenth pebble. A few minutes later she was leading him by hand away from the house, into some bushes. They sat on the ground.
"You swam across."
He nodded.
"You're freezing." She hugged him. They sat together quietly, her arms around him.
"When do you have to be back?"
"In a few hours."
"I'm going to sneak into the house and got some blankets." She did. She brought an alarm clock, too. "Let's sleep," she said, and they did, after he had dried himself off as best he could.
Beep, beep, beep, said the alarm clock.
A long, full kiss. Then they got up and, leaving his wet shirt behind, he swam back.
It went quickly. He felt her with him a lot of the time.
He snuck into his house and got into the shower. He knew his father hadn't noticed his absence.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

a texture


We have a non-power lawn mower, appropriate to our small yard. Long stems of grass and other plants get wound around the axles between where the blades are and the wheels. Today I used a kitchen pairing knife, serrated, sharp, not too big, and thought, at last, the tool I've needed. The texture of the grass against the sawing knife. The sense of accomplishment when I've picked the axle clean.
I want "toothsome" to mean gratifying to one's teeth, in a texture-y way, and "handsome" to mean gratifying to the hand, in a texture-y way. Our language doesn't have an adequate vocabulary fThe art required is one of mataphor and comparison, and those are treasures, but wo would be words for these sense-of-touch sensations. And it wasn't just the sense of touch: the sound of the knife's serrations rubbing against the grass was part of what was satisfying, and our vocabulary for our sense of hearing isn't so great either.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Lady Gaga to Bert Edwards

http://www.irishcentral.com/

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (born March 28, 1986), better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American recording artist.


Some individuals who are related to a celebrity take a different last name so that they are not perceived to have received undue advantage from their family connection. Examples of these include Nicolas Cage (real name Nicolas Coppola, nephew of Francis Ford Coppola).

Cage has been nominated twice for an Academy Award, winning once for his performance as a suicidal alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas.

Made of gold-plated britannium on a black metal base, [the Oscar statuette] is 13.5 in (34 cm) tall, weighs 8.5 lb (3.85 kg) and depicts a knight rendered in Art Deco style holding a crusader's sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes.

Art Deco affected all areas of design throughout the 1920s and 1930s, including architecture and industrial design, as well as the visual arts such as painting, the graphic arts and film.

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium[1] to a surface (support base).

In mathematics, specifically in topology, a surface is a two-dimensional topological manifold.
A topological space X is called locally Euclidean if there is a non-negative integer n such that every point in X has a neighborhood which is homeomorphic to an open subset of Euclidean space Rn.

Intuitively speaking (see below for a more intuitive discussion), a set U is open if any point x in U can be moved in any "direction" and still be in the set U.

The notion of an open set provides a fundamental way to speak of nearness of points in a topological space, without explicitly having a concept of distance defined.

Distance was a late-1980s rock/funk band led by bassist/producer Bernard Edwards, patterned after the Power Station.

Edwards played a Music Man StingRay
(bequeathed to Duran Duran's John Taylor after his death), a Fender Precision Bass, and a B.C. Rich "Eagle" bass during the prime of Chic. Later he would also use a Spector NS. He also was known to play a G & L L-1000 and a Sadowsky standard.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

A Martian Sends a Postcard


Dear Glor-glor,

Greetings! Earth is confusing. The subject of my studies, Earthlings, are a series of ovals walking through waves of light. That is all I have discovered so far. More later.

Your co-worker,
Flor-flor

Deawr Glor-glor,

I have learned more.

Humans have antennae, but invisible ones. They always ask, "are we friends? are we equals?" with their antennae.

Singing is something they do constantly. They have two modes (at least) of singing. In mode one, their hypnotism sensor is turned off. In mode two, they hypnotize their listeners.

More later,
Flor-flor

Dear Glor-glor,

Earthlings' favorite thing to do is look at each other. Sometimes they look into a machine that shows them a picture of another earthling who is the same as they are, and even moves the way they do.

They make marks on very, very thin pieces of wood.

Humans' brains are inside but also outside of their bodies.

I am still confused. I think I have to return to Mars and take a break. See you soon.

Flor-flor

Happiness

or that describe three kinds of happiness: pleasure, engagement, and meaning.

proximity to other happy people

living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion.

Happiness economics suggests that measures of public happiness should be used to supplement more traditional economic measures when evaluating the success of public policy.

50% of one's happiness depends on one's genes, based on studying identical twins, whose happiness is 50% correlated even when growing up in different houses.[5] About 10% to 15% is a result of various measurable life circumstances variables, such as socioeconomic status, marital status, health, income, sex[6] and others. The remaining 40% is a combination of unknown factors and the results of actions that individuals deliberately engage in to become happier.

Oxford Happiness Questionnaire[7] as a broad measure of psychological well-being.

sense of purpose, social interest and kindness, sense of humor and aesthetic appreciation.[8]

happiness in social networks may spread from person to person. Researchers followed nearly 5000 individuals for 20 years in the long-standing Framingham Heart Study and found clusters of happiness and unhappiness that spread up to 3 degrees of separation on average.

Envy is believed to produce unhappiness.

the majority of well-conducted studies found that higher levels of religious involvement are positively associated with indicators of psychological well-being

Nirvana

felicity (Latin equivalent to the Greek eudaimonia), or "blessed happiness", described by the thirteenth-century philosopher-theologian Thomas Aquinas as a Beatific Vision of God's essence in the next life.

the only thing that humans desire for its own sake, unlike riches, honor, health or friendship.

See also

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Gary


At night he jumps from his window to a branch and has a party with bats, squirrels, and crickets.
For breakfast he heats twigs and leafmeal moistened with aphid milk.
His parents buy TV sets but he always paints pictures on the screens.
He can make his mind go at different speeds: very fast, very slow, normal. Very fast is his favorite.
One day when he woke up he was fifty feet above the earth. His mother was holding a piece of string, tied to his ankle, like in Fellini's 8 1/2, but Gary thought it was funny.
Gary thinks he has nine brothers, six sisters, seven dogs, four cats, three rats, and three crickets. Really he has four crickets, not three.
Sometimes he sleeps, and when he does his mother does a dance, and sings,
Gary is my joy
he is my darling boy
I'm glad he's not a toy
but sometimes I think he might be a koi
and someone enchanted it to seem like a boy.
Gary loves the song. He only pretends to be asleep. But then he really is asleep.


Eagles Sang:


"Sane gals
sell all:
eggs, legs, gels.
Nags lean, sag.
Eagles lease lenses.
Glans gleans genes.
Lanes angle."

Has a Secret Plan


0r he'd like you to think so
his mind scampers to and fro
except when it floats
like a boat
on a lake reflecting dusk-glow

he thinks the world might fall
into fragments people trees and all
but he stays relaxed
stays away from the cracks
he knows when to hurry when to stall

his secret plan for you
is to see things as if they were new
because then he knows
you'll think he's a rose
whose magic power will tell false from true

Monday, July 26, 2010

paracosm/bibliocosm/cinecosm etc.


a paracosm/bibliocosm/cinecosm:

a high school, the student body of which contains modern versions of

females--good characters:

Viola (main character) (Robin Gudenov)
Dorothea Brooks (Cecilia Mansfield)
Beatrice (Mary Long)
Celia Brooks Claire Woodward
Miranda Anne Bellotti
Cher from Clueless Linda Durham
the female romantic lead from American Graffiti Barbara Murphy
Wendy from Wendy and Lucy Pixie Garafolo
the lead in Happy Go Lucky Molly Williams
Helen Bonham Carter Angela Sharpton
Beyonce DeQuana Quintana
Lady Gaga Ali MacSweeney
Anne Elliot Gail Delafield
Dionne Warwick LeShane Martinez

female--neutral characters:

the Anita Ekberg character from La Dolce Vita
the Catherine DeNeuve character from La Belle de Jour
Gwyneth Paltrow
Joni Mitchell
Fanny Price
Mary Garth
Daisy Miller
Molly Farren

female--bad characters:

Madame Merle
Lady Macbeth
Miss Bingley
Mrs. Hurst
Elizabeth Elliot
Mary Crawford
Rosamonde Vincy (neutral?)
the Wife of Bath

male--good characters

Gawain (of Gawain and the Green Knight)
Huckleberry Finn
Darcy
Bingley
Silas Marner

male--neutral characters

Winterbourne
Eugenio
Tom Sawyer
Fred Vincy
Hotspur
Godfrey Cass
Jim (from Huckleberry Finn)
Malcolm X

male--bad characters

Prince Hal
Osmond
Henry Crawford
Casaubon
Malvolio
Iago
William Dane
Dunstan Cass
the Pardoner
the Summoner

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Typical Work Day


My cell phone signals six o'clock.
I taste toast, tea.
My Honda hurries past houses,
a lake, tree leaves, a traffic light.
My daughter and I discuss drama department drama.
Ninth graders, a nest of nuthatches, natter.
Their clamor calms me. I call the roll.
Too much talking. Take this test.
We wonder about weird world views.
"After reading Rimbaud's rant, write . . ."
Juniors! Monsters to mold into meritorious minds,
angels asking acute questions,
congeries of consciousnesses to cajole.
Lunch. If I'm lucky I'll locate a close colleague, continue
tenaciously to train ourselves to teach.
I read students' writing, render a rubric-based reckoning.
I answer emails,
discuss delinquents,
gossip gleefully,
head home.

heaven story idea 1


Lily said, "I don't want to take nap. I'm not five years old!" and she threw herself toward the floor. Before she reached the floor she was on a street corner. The street sign was charming, but she couldn't figure out why. Along came a girl her age. Lily felt that to be her friend would be the most fun thing in the world. She loved everything about her: her nose, her red, ringleted hair, her dirty knees.
"Excuse me," Lily called. The girl stopped. Was she glowing with a sense of fun and mischief, or was that Lily's imagination? "Can you please tell me where I am? I seem to be lost."
"Oh sure, you're on the corner of Vineyard Lane and Plexiglass Place."
"May I stay with you?" Lily asked.
"I'm so glad you want to! Want to go visit some puppy Boxer dogs with me?"
They walked together, holding hands.
At the next corner, a pumpkin-colored cat said, "Hello Lily, hello Frankie."
"Ponder!" Frankie said, scratching Ponder behind the ears.
"I'm sorry to interrupt your journey," said the cat, "but I have to ask you a question, Lily."
It was the most beautiful cat Lily had ever seen.
"You want to ask--me? A question?"
"Yes please," said Ponder. It is so lovely having you here. But Ihave to be quick. Your "nap" is about to end; your mother is on her way to wake you up."
"My mother?"
"Sorry to hurry you. Do you want to stay here with us longer? If you do, your family will worry. They will worry very much. But you'll get to stay here. Or you can go back to earth in the next few seconds."
Lily looked at Frankie, back at Ponder, back at Frankie.
"I have to go back," Lily said.
Frankie kissed her on the cheek. "Good choice. I hope I see you again."
Lily's mother shook her and said, "Silly Lily, you fell asleep on the floor!"
Lily said, "Mom, I don't think I was asleep."

First line of a story


My shot dribbled out of bounds. I had gotten a little wood on it, that was all. We looked at each other. She ran toward the net and hurdled over it. "Good game," I said.

The Summer of the Silly Bandz



"Do you know why you're doing this?" he asked.
And then the wheel of sensation spun, and the summer was over.

A Relationship


http://www.postersguide.com/posters/the-passing-of-king-arthur-illustration-from-idylls-of-the-king-by-alfred-tennyson-40

Minnie wore sneakers
Winnie wore boats
Minnie loved otters
Winnie loved stoats

Minnie's voice
made the stars sing
Winnie's notes
each had a sting

They decided to part
They decided to stay
What their life was about
they couldn't say

exercise in using the same letters



1. A maple alpaca came to the palace.
2. The cat teases and cheats. His chest aches.
3. In a cage, in a cottage,/a cat plays a toccata.

Brief Autobiography in Eight Parts


At six weeks old my family moved from New Orleans to a suburb of New York City, where my parents reunited. In my In my twenties, I discovered their correspondence from this time.
I made up an imaginary baseball team, based on my friends, and had them play baseball games in an imaginary league
In college I wrote a poem and someone criticized it and I didn't write another for three years or so.
I got divorced. Fortunately, we didn't have children--that would have complicated things.
My daughter jumped on our bed, asking questions about God. She was three years old. It was eleven p.m.
I started working at C____ and in one class we made up an imaginary world, including its government and its religious rituals.
I spent the weekend writing about Acute Aesthetic Response Syndrome.
I periodically imagine myself as a rock near a forest path. My wife is a nearby tree. One child is a close-by brook. Another is another close-by tree.

A Garden and a Toad at Dusk

Back from a walk with Dawn, the daylight was just going.

Dawn stopped to pick a couple of weeds.

A tiny frog or toad hopped oh twenty times its length in front of me,

one more hop and it was in the barberry bush.

I thought, and muttered “poetry consists of ‘imaginary gardens with real toads in them,’”

so that Dawn said, “What?”

Did Marianne Moore say that, or did William Butler Yeats,

or was one quoting the other?

Was this garden at dusk a real or imaginary garden?

Had that tiny toad been real or a dream?

Was this entire moment any more than a dream?

When young, one gets the potential validity of the idea

of the butterfly who dreamed he was a philosopher dreaming of being a butterfly,

but I find in my advanced years that no, I really feel as if I can’t tell

if I am philosopher or butterfly or what.

Then we went inside and made love and after that watched half of a movie.

Life as a Sixteenth Century Italian Painting

On a walk, the sky and tree leaves were those of a sixteenth century Italian painting,

it was soquiet that the sound of the lively breeze (yet it was hot and humid) bounced

through my ear canals

In an eerie way, as if my life were an arty movie, like La Jette.

Crossing route 16 I almost caused an accident because a car stopped for me, as was

proper,

but the car behind that one had to swerve dramatically, I jumped back!

Ben, working on the garden in the front, quoted a line from a graduation speech

that had become mythical in his family for its silliness:

“a hole is a question, which when filled with facts is held together with meaning.”

Then Susie came out and by the time we’d finished talking I had made an important

decision,

to get a divorce, as it were, from our singing group (I had been a charter member, and for

seventeen years).

So then I wanted to tell Kate, and she and John were on their patio reading the Sunday

Times.

The air, the light on the leaves, the blossoming trees.

Then I was back home.