The heater is humming low, trying to dry those damp socks I
washed yesterday. I’ve opened two windows, opposite each other, torn between
warmth, too much, most would say if they happened into Room 11. Florida air
riding in over the saw palmettos I face as I write this down, post-nap and
pre-authors chat. I can say I went to lunch and sat with the sun on my back and
that is what has made me heavy with sleep, gravity pulling me towards the bed. Decompression
and compression, together. Head saturated and unclear. Hope this will help:
push the poetry out. Make the week count for the missed parts. Write in between
workshops and readings, meals and sinuous walks around the grounds leading to
those stairs going nowhere but up onto another ACA loft. Saw only part legs and
feet dangling down from the bench up there, backed up and away, quietly. A
salamander ran up a branch, my third one since arriving. Salty swim put off, waiting
for a hotter tomorrow and a hoped for nicely-timed meeting with editor Jeff, in
from the cold.
In
this place - after Cenotaph by Fanny Howe
I
want to stay in this place
keep
the palm-littered terrace
that
looks up to the mountain
and
its cathedral we call a
chateau
lit up at night, wish
on stars
before bed and in
the
day, hang laundry there,
watching
the pools of others.
The
walk to school overload
of
snails after any rain and
counting
the cats in the park
eyes
peering out at us from
the
bush. On the streets Catalan
never
sounds like Catalan until
it
is too late to respond.
Colors
pump and shout and I
think
of denuded elsewheres
and
breathe a sigh of relief.
Does
life ever begin or end?
I
think it just keeps glowing.
personal poem - in
response to Frank O’Hara
Now when I walk around after lunchtime
I have no charms in my pocket, although
the sun around my neck could constitute
something of a bet on good luck, an amulet
to shoo away evil spirits, call off the dogs
and lure the poetry gods to my desk side.
Francois bought it for me, in Williamsburgh
where we lived for a happy time before ties
started walking down Bedford Avenue and
the high rises went up and Verb, our first –
thanks to Greg who lived in Brooklyn then –
and favorite café closed because developers
bought up this lot as well. Angelika, the first
person to cut my son’s hair for the first time,
down the street from Frisco & Adam & Lacy
at Verb also left. As for Madrid, my packing
cases have been fine there, but little purses
containing wallet, an I-phone3 and 4,989
photos, less so. I still had my passport &
after
some possibly useless police work & arguing
with security and AirLot personnel, they allowed
me, with a permission slip, to board my flight
and meet my son in Warsaw where a friend,
Maciej - said like matcha, the tea, but softer –
did show up to greet us with his daughter Suzy-
said like Suzy
- and over a US-sized carrot juice
in the Bardzo Café we decide we were amused by
Chopin & Sands’ get away and that we both like
Szymborska although only one of us tried chasing
her down in Kraków when she had already headed
for the mountains after the Nobel so she could
keep writing. Later, I set my almost anonymous
head on the hostel pillow, happy, most
definitely so.
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