May 6, 2009

Royal purple iris outside my study window. The rain comes to nourish my flowers, and I bless it on its way down.

I’ve been attacking the wild front terrace with pruning shears and a saw blade, and interesting things emerge from the dying heap of junk vines: roses on the verge of bloom, two volunteer dogwoods, the nest of the towhees. The Mr. Lincolns bloom in the front garden.

Monday night my playwrights put on their show at the Flood Gallery, and it was remarkable for the pleasure t gave to the people who attended. I was very proud of them, and hatching plots to keep them with me, though we know all such effort are futile. Three UNCA faculty attended, the first time, I think, in eighteen productions. It is a new, bright age. I promised to party with them afterwards, but I was too tired almost to close the car door.

Wrote Bloom’s essay on Shelley and the Sublime between last night and this morning.

Penguin Rep in Stony Point, New York is interested in Saint Patrick’s Well. The Irish Rep in New York wrote me a darling rejection of The Ouzel and the Seal. . . almost as encouraging as an acceptance. Almost.

Jocasta is not sick, but she is a rag of fur wrapped around a spine. She cries piteously, and in a voice unlike her own, when it has been too long since she cuddled in my lap. She sleeps, and stirs only when I lie down, when she crawls to her accustomed place on my thigh.