Vines

 August 8, 2026

Rob the handyman– who plays upright bass and in his 20's rehearsed with a combo somewhere on this street–came to fix the fascia under my roof. He claims to be mystified by the cause of the problem, but fixed it “for the moment.” Whenever I hear “for the moment” I take comfort, thinking, “How long can I live? It’ll be somebody else’s problem.” My attention drawn to the western wall, I saw how overgrown it had become with noxious vines (not noxious in the abstract, but noxious there) and went into an orgy of weeding. The damp ground provided satisfaction as whole giant root systems came up without much resistance.

My little aerator makes a glittering umbrella of drops over the waterlilies. In that I am happy. 

Can’t get my mind off the AVLGMV debacle. This is usually the sign that I’ve left unfinished business, but I’m not sure what. It’s only a debacle for me, I imagine; for the rest it’s relief from a weekly annoyance. Opposing Penis Head over Humanities I was absolutely on the side of right, fighting the Long Decline. Two years later the program was dead. Could I have saved it? Maybe not, but at least its end would have been lamentable, as it was not the way things turned out. With the chorus I think it’s more a change of generation. I’m sorry that the genius of this generation involves the apotheosis of one’s own trauma over all other matters, but there you are. I’d be fighting with people I like, who, I think, are genuinely astonished by my vehemence over matters that in their circles are never mentioned. So be it.  But something keeps me gnawing at it, like a puppy with the corner of a rug. Have I left something out? Have I been reasonable in my explanations? Is my duty to oppose or support the second-rate thing, rejoicing that it is not worse? If I’d finished my task, would it not vacate my thoughts? 

One observes of the Corporate Mind that it wants to install its plan regardless of the benefit to the organization. Better the business die than not have my mark on it. The Corporate mind confuses second and first causes, confuses the adverb for the verb. Efficiency becomes the goal, leaving behind consideration of the process that one was meant to be efficient at. Bottom line becomes the goal, forgetting that the whole ledger was meant to support some actual cause. That is what destroys universities and theaters. The goal is forgotten. The operation of administration wholly replaces the thing administered. 

Congress has just voted the stupidest man in America– and one corrupt to the limits stupidity allows–as our Attorney General. 

Evening: Rob the Handyman needs to come back tomorrow to finish. I said I’d pay him now in case I was gone tomorrow. He figured for a moment and then said, “That will be $40.” I said. “That’s ridiculous. Carrying that stupid ladder was worth $40.” I gave him $100. 

I prepared a memoir of my time with his father for Taliesin. I stopped by the Sav-Mor several times to give it to him, but he was not working. But I was filled with a need to go tonight so intense I might call it supernatural. I went, and there he was. He had to go on break, had to go home for dinner, so there was no time to talk. He was very flustered. He took the pages out and returned the brown paper envelope, saying “I’m returning this. These things are very expensive.”  I’ve never minded being a cog in someone else’s machine, a contributor to someone else’s story. Rejoice in it, in fact, when I recognize it’s happening. 

 

August 6, 2026

Thunderstorm at this moment.

Pulling of wild grapes with enormous underground tubers.

Phoned D for a quick catch-up. 

Rewrote a poem that I first wrote when J gave me the gift of a lapis lazuli ring. 

Praetorius from the computer. 

Lizard

 August 5, 2026

Turbulent day. 

Rich, intricate dreams, that ended with an extended wildlife motif. At the last I was inspecting a zoo of some kind, and was shown an exhibit where the occupant had not been seen for days. Immediately it came out of the sand, a large red lizard as friendly and demonstrative as a dog. Each time I passed, the lizard came out to greet me. This seemed symbolic at the time. 

The pond weighs inordinately on my mind. This is because it’s an ecosystem that I fostered and for which I feel responsibility. When it’s not getting aerated, I despair. Today I realized (after literally years of anxiety) that I didn’t have to replace the inaccessible motor, but could install one of those portable plug-in fountains that squirts water into the air. Raced to Jesse Israel and got one. Installation was complicated because the motor I mentioned before keeps throwing the breaker, and it looked like the new fountain didn’t work either, until I figured it all out. I do not do well with trial and error, though the universe imposes it on me when it wants. 

 

August 4, 2026

There’s a table with house plants in the living room. Every so often in the evening the houseplants quiver as though struck by a strong breeze. I’ll be sitting watching, and am sure there was in fact no strong breeze, and no way for there to be one. The fan might be on, but it’s been on for hours without any shuddering of the foliage. A little botanical ghost. A figurine of the Buddha sits amid the plants. Maybe he’s responsible. 

Taliesin

 August 2, 2026

Bought some items at Sav-Mor, and as I paid I noticed the check-out boy’s name tag: Taliesin. I knew in an instant who he was, and that I had given him that name. He’s J’s son. When D was pregnant with him, J and I strove to come up with a name that was both heroic and unusual. I’d been reading Charles Williams, so I drew Taliesin out of the air. He’s never met his father, and couldn’t believe he was as near as Johnson City. He quizzed me on J, all the while unsure he wanted to meet and know “a man like that.” Certainly J has not earned his son’s– any of his sons’– admiration. Taliesin is slight and skinny and delicate-looking, but recognizably his father’s. “What kind of man was my father?” he said. Before I censored myself, I said, “I loved him.” 

On the Internet– where I spend much too much of my time– are lists of symptoms and what ailment they indicate. When I read these, they usually imply I’m pretty damn healthy. But I read one: If You Grew up with Emotionally Undemonstrative Parents You Probably:. I tick every single box, exhibit every characteristic, have developed every single coping mechanism listed.

 August 1, 2026

Drove to Valvoline and got my car inspected by the ultra-hot redneck boys. 

Drove to Woodfin to look at the water from what used to be Riverside Park. Still raw and ruinous, as it may be for a century. Mostly people walking their dogs, none of the dogs apparently interested in meeting me. Ten geese flew by, honking, with the eleventh trailing behind. 

I try to avoid conversations with T, because they never end, but I was caught today. I helped him with the English words “dwarf” and “owl.” He works five or six jobs to keep his family afloat and navigates what a Mexican immigrant has to navigate, so he surprised me by fulminating against lazy poor people and people who want things handed to them. Maybe explains why there are immigrant Republicans– we worked hard, and by God they must too. I honor that without feeling it. T is jealous because my mulberries and his were planted at the same time, and mine are gigantic, while his are paltry. He believed that through the last several summers I underpaid him by $1500, so we got that settled. 

Calling of frogs, the music of peace. 

Quincy

 July 30, 2026

Hancock Street goes up at the Ruth Gordon Amphitheater in Quincy, Mass. That play has been done twice in Mass, though under different titles, first at Williamstown. 

After storms and heat, today was cool, sharp as glass, each object radiant.

Watched my cleaning ladies leave after their service, wondering what they thought of me from looking at my house and my things.  

Lunch with DJ and J and L. DJ was trapped in his chair during the black-out– the afflictions you don’t think of unless you’re experiencing them.