October 10, 2026
Hiss of wind-driven rain on the roof. Helene-like, but not, so far, Helene.
Made peanut butter pie for DJ’s movie party.
Mostly, so far, have slept through the dreary weather. The dreams have been almost exclusively of getting my script in order for some gigantic theater production. The scenes are vividly color-coded, but somehow are too stiff and big for me to put in order.
A poet named K writes to me, sends a book, reminding me of a reading I did at a bookstore in Ithaca forty years ago. We evidently made a connection, which she remembers, alas, in greater detail than I. She has read The Glacier’s Daughters “hundreds of times.” I examine my journals for the event, and, incredibly, it is there. I say “Incredibly” because I’d begun keeping my journal on the computer only that year, 1985; otherwise, I would have to go to the riverside and comb through hard copy in infinite notebooks, which I would not have done. The reading was evidently part of my last journey to Upstate New York., where I had a reading at SU as well as Ithaca:
October 18, 1985
In Syracuse I went to the record store that was my favorite, and I bought the Incredible String Band album that I now play to the dark of the mountain. "May the long time sun shine upon you, all love surround you, and the pure light within you guide your way on," they sing as the merry people sang at Koinonia at parting, and will never sing again. Nor did they sing it to me, as I crept away in the secret of night, defeated.
I walked at night in Syracuse, the streets, the bitter cold I remember, the fresh of the wind hurrying my steps. So intimately was my life tied to darkness and solitariness that I felt the way, recalling each reflection from each building window, each rainpool, the duration of each traffic light, the perils and mysteries of each corner. Night with her shivering arms welcomed me. She remembered my walking as perhaps no one has walked since, in such longing, in such passionate uncertainty. I walked Catherine Street looking into the windows I looked in before. I walked James Street where the one-sex couples sit on their stoops, too old and satisfied to cruise the passer-by. I stood in the shadow cast by the Church of the Saviour, my hand against his red wall as though to feel the vibrations of ghosts, weeping, reciting the names of my lost, all those I met in that holy building and, unless the world changes, I shall never see again. Voices, candlelight, incense, the enclosing of God's arms. I cried, not knowing whether in gratitude or bereavement. It rained a cold winter rain. I walked downtown, past Brancas, the little bars and restaurants that change hands and names each season. On Water Street Cissy's was gone. On the next block, Ryan's was gone. Ghosts, faces, music. I ran to the Bunkhouse. It at least was as I remember, the old queens the same, the sweet young things different and yet recognizable. Dickie still guards the door. I wanted to say,
"Don't you remember me? Don't you remember wearing this leather jacket to keep it safe while I danced? Don't you remember kissing me and calling me 'baby' when I ran past you into the starlight? Don't you remember begging me to come to your room, opening my hand into a palm into which you dropped your address night after night?"
Dickie has grown fat, a face like a toad's. But the same sweet bray of laughter, the harmless soul lost in that smoky dark forever. Five men in that room had courted me. Did none remember? Why should I remember them and they not me? Or was that revenge for my not loving them?
I ran up Genesee, University, through the Rose Garden where yet bloomed a few roses. I ran in pitch dark to the edge of Glamu to look at my old house on Madison Street, just as it was. I felt my way. The nightlit shadow of every tree was familiar, dear, wounding. I turned and climbed the hill of the water tower. As I looked out over the city over which the sky was a whirling wheel, a charybdis of energy released and never welcomed home. \I am still that man!\I heard my heart exclaim. \It is not accomplished!\I heard my brain answer, recognizing that all that energy must still whirl and quiver, having achieved not one thing it wanted. The strange thing is that the emotion, that feeling of incompleteness, was as sweet as it was bitter.
I return to find a whirlwind above the lights, the swirl of abandoned energy, the patient remonstrance of things left halfdone.
Why did I leave? I hoped for more.
*
Bitter rainy morning. I lost me in the press of Marshall Street, amazed at how little of my nostalgia was associated with the university, how much with the neighborhoods downtown and eastward. As I must have been before, I was dazzled by the beauty of the students, swarthy, dramatic, chiseled and vibrant. Asheville has blond and outright black, but nothing like that bronze and well-fed splendor of flesh.
The reading itself was an artistic mediocrity. A room mix-up found us in a lounge in Maxwell, which was also a sort of office-supply storage area. Secretaries banged in at out every few minutes, looking disgruntled that they should have to regard us for an instant in their domain. J sat in the front row beaming until about midway. Then she took up her giant handbag and dragged as loudly as possible toward the door. I tried not to notice, but her exit was both noisy and incredibly protracted. A few seconds after it had finally come to an end, a secretary dashed in with that satisfied look of someone about to interrupt a frippery unaccountably important to others. She said, "I'm sorry to interrupt, but someone has collapsed in the hall. Are there any loose pillows on the chairs in here?" How happy she was, bustling about, secure in the knowledge that what\she\had to say was more important than mere poetry. Word came that the collapsed person was J. The J of old came back to me. I understood. She always passes out or throws up at a reading; not herself a writer, she participates in the one way she can. I forgave her. I was glad, in fact, for that sliver of old times to be back again.
I read blandly, hastily, embarrassed at all the interruptions, as though the whole world were looking at its watch, bursting for this incongruous moment to be over.
Drove south with the sickle moon riding the clouds before me.
The reading at McBooks in Ithaca was, on the other hand, triumphant. Perhaps the best reading I have ever done. I heard my voice find new nuances, fresh music in the words, as it does when I act on the stage. Very intimate setting, very select group. I was happy. Kit was there to buy me beers and tell pointless anecdotes about our past. He waited several hours in a bar beside the bookstore, so he'd be able to show me the way. Cecil and Katherine, whom I had not seen in years but think of often. FM. More of the old crew than in Syracuse. Sweet and attentive strangers sitting with their backs against the bookshelves.
Fred said, "They talk of you often in Syracuse. Everyone says, 'heard from Hopes?'"
Fred said, "When I get discouraged I think of you, how everything came to you in that one magic week." I wouldn't tarnish the moment by saying, "and has ceased ever since."
Scurrying down the Commons toward my car, I caught the eye of a boy who leaned against a light pole. He had that swarthy Mediterranean beauty I had admired all day, bold and tentative at once, like a young stag. I smiled, in recognition of his beauty and how cold he must have been with only his green army jacket. But he misinterpreted, and followed me. Another time, another place. . . but I was cold and tired. I turned my back and strode straight out of his life back into my own.
Drove home, slept over Syracuse, left yesterday morning, spent the night among time-wasting college students in Harrisonville Virginia, returned today after noon, with all that grief and hope and longing shrunk to a head-gem. I take it out and turn it in the light.
*
The furnace kicked on of its own, the house having reached the limit I set for it in May. I’m wondering if the turkeys are sheltering in my garden, where they would be safe.
Made a peanut butter pie for DJ’s movie night.
