April 11, 2008

The least and newest lilac is in bloom on the front terrace, its little branches hardly able to hold its clusters of blossoms above the ground. The wood hyacinths have come into flower; the trout lilies are in their glory; the violets are a purple shadow under the sweet gum in the midst of day. The pale lavender hepatica come between the blue and the white. I bought an oak barrel to start a water garden in. I can hardly contain my impatience to have waterlilies blooming in my yard.

Went to see Underneath the Lintel at NC Stage, an intriguing one-act which supposes a librarian in Holland discovers a book 113 years overdue in the return slot, which he eventually traces to the Wandering Jew, and through which, I suppose, if I was following it right, he seems actually to become the wandering Jew. The librarian, who had been an atheist and had believed in nothing spiritual, took the revelations of the Wandering Jew as mounting proof of the existence of God. I, who never doubted the existence of God, would have taken it as proof of an uncharacteristic and soul-troubling malevolence. Wicked deeds do not become justified because God does them.

It was raining a sweet rain when I left the theater, and in the park the drummers were drumming and the young of Asheville were trance-dancing, faces tipped up to the rain.