October 30, 2007

Have been up and about in the gray morning. Stood in the frost-covered garden, and didn’t try to choke back the tears of botanical frustration and sadness, as nobody was watching. I think the one red rose may survive.

Letter from Barbara Gislason, my erstwhile agent. I know it was meant to be illuminating and enlightening, and I know I am meant to share her delight in her new spiritual path, and perhaps I do share it to some degree, but somewhere behind the swirling veils of anger and frustration. She kept me waiting for five years. She commissioned me to write a book for her, on a very clear-- if not fully legal-- understanding of publication, a book so specific that it may or may not be useful to me elsewhere. Amid periods of neglect she phoned every now and then and left the message “don’t give up on me,” which I-- foolishly, as it turns out-- took to heart. I am happy she has found a satisfying thing to do. It’s a shame that doing it made her a liar in other areas of commitment, but one chooses and goes on. The part of the stories of Jesus and the Buddha when they abandoned–or advised others to abandon–those who depended on them have always bothered me. The fact that Siddhartha had a wife and son–not to mention a kingdom-- is shrugged off as though they were mere inconveniences. I don’t pretend to understand the mysteries surrounding these things, but I think it is an error to hold them up as examples of good behavior to those who are not gods.

I do seem to be beset by professional deadbeats–two disappearing agents, that wretch David Godine, most lately Orion magazine– is it me? Do I have “sucker” printed invisibly on my stationery or something? If it’s me, I don’t know how. I try to be the soul of cooperation. I have cooperated myself mostly into innumerable dead ends.

The new furnace, though cold as mud, is Chinese red. I like that.