Spirits

 

June 23, 2025

Cool morning of what is expected to be a torrid day. I’ll be flying away from an Asheville expecting to hit 100 degrees to a Manhattan expected t hit 95. The task is to pick out clothes that can be sweated in without showing. The task is to beg the skyscrapers for their shade. 

The concert at the New Hope church turned out well, in some ways our best, as the pressure was off. Informal gathering afterwards to share insights and emotions-- really quite sweet, if not the kind of situation where I am comfortable. 

For two nights now I have meditated on my porch naked– or half naked, as the slats in the chair do not accommodate full nakedness. It has been lovely. One seldom feels like the animal one is blessed to be. I’m invisible from the street, and as much as I might long for it, no one ever turns into the drive to visit me. Wide thoughts, that are difficult to put into words on the morning after. Last night a great meteor appeared in the southern sky, pale green trailing into blinding white. It seemed so close I expected to hear a sound. Afterward, a spirit visited me that I recognized as Sweetboi. I recalled standing on that porch, and his flying toward me as if he were going to land on my shoulder, and in the last second veering up over the roof. I thought it was play. He was dead two days later. Now I think he was trying to tell me something; it was a signal, a warning I could not read. His spirit came into me by night. I spread my arms in the dark to accommodate his wings. He gave me strength, youth. May it hold.

Iran

 June 22, 2025

The Times reveals that I’ll hit New York the same time as a heat wave raising temperatures in Central Park to 95.

Weak little Trump has been teased by Netanyahu into bombing Iran. Add this to the list of unforgivable atrocities. The man cannot live long enough to undergo sufficient punishment. 

“Thank you” concert at Hew Hope Presbyterian. I had hoped to opt out of this, but they scheduled my pieces. All I want is for this round to be over. 

Concert

 June 21, 2025

Solstice comes to the garden in an overlay of gold and purple.

Thinking of conversation with P, the single most learned and intellectual man I know personally, or know well enough to taste the full savor of his learning. He has read everything. The obscure to him is a backyard and a cozy den. To call someone “intellectual” is not fully praise, for I notice certain things to which his nature is blind. He spent time dismissing St. Francis for being anti-intellectual. My suggestion that after Aquinas, et al, Francis might be good medicine did not register. Good deeds unbolstered by sound theory do not move him. He’s diving back into Pindar and Horace because, at 80, he fears he might be “losing my Greek and Latin.” People call me intellectual, but I think they mean by that “well-informed.” My approach to experience is not intellectual until several steps down, when it is finally time to compare and analyze. For P’s sake I opened up Pindar and read a little. Even in English, the majesty of it comes through. 

Weeding and planting yesterday before the heat of the day. 

Beautiful cream callas with purple throats. 

First of two concerts last night at Grace Covenant Pres. Our new voices are skilled, energetic, a little boisterous. In the one recording I heard (of “I Sing the Body Electric” ) the balance was better than it ever had been. We attempt too much in too little time, though, and the result is necessarily a little rough. We were reviewing notes in our warm-up time before the show. Concerts are problematic for me now in that they result in real discomfort, real pain from standing in on place so long, that takes considerable time to ease away. I had to lean on the piano to get my numb legs off the stage. I think my readings went well. In terms of individual exposure, I suppose I’m the star of the show. That’s funny. 

 

June 18, 2025

Lunch with P and talk of Blake, Pindar, Horace at Rye Knot. 

 

June 17, 2025

AG sends me a Facebook DM:

I’m not sure if you'll see this but I recently acquired this painting and am wondering if its one of yours and if you could tell me anything about it. Its small, 5x8.

It was mine, painted in Liam’s B&B in Sligo. 

Bought a T-shirt from a Facebook vendor. A seam opened after one laundering. I have T-shirts from graduate school. So we pass from gold to iron . . . .

Emptied the last jug of drinking water hauled from Atlanta during the hurricane crisis. 

Sat on the porch last night during and then after a thunderstorm. The frogs in the pond were hollering their heads off.

KH is dead.

Facebook videos of Cork and Dublin are slaying me. 

Brilliant, agate summer day, sometimes unfathomable blue, sometimes white and gray with storm. Gardening past the morning or before the evening is no longer possible. 

 

June 16, 2025

During the discussion by the actresses of my play, I noted how nuances that would be clear to a literary critic or an academic reader escaped their notice. It didn’t seem right to say anything. Later on I blessed my reluctance, realizing that though these nuances were discussable, they may not be actable. Anna says a number of things that would lead the attentive reader to assume she’s having second thoughts about a lesbian lifestyle. Neither actresses nor director noted this. Maybe they will, or maybe it’s something that would muddle rather than clarify enactment. Part of my history as a playwright/poet is to have left clues in the text to which more purely theatrical people do not respond.

Hit the “magic moment” with Purification, when the structure suddenly shimmers into place.

 

June 15, 2025

Trump’s speech for Army Day was not actually idiotic. Disappointing, in its way.  Cameras reveal few viewers and vast expanses of empty grass in DC. Red Boise had more protestors against Trump than Washington had supporters, most of whom were soldiers under orders. A man with no shame. 

Watched a movie about mutant alligators infesting a city’s sewers. Thought about the main actor, who was able and competent. I imagined him thinking ruefully, “Here I am more than half way through my career, starring in a mutant alligator movie.” I couldn’t sit on the porch that night for fear of alligators.