April 13, 2010

White lilac, and the bi-colored purple lilac that I saved from the rocks. The violets are in most amazing bloom, like Durer’s paintings of violets, purple and lilac and lilac-purple. Embroidery on a green ground that is the ground. By night the faint perfume moves and shimmers across the ground. I stand over them transfixed. It must perplex the neighbors. It perplexes me. I want to sell this house and go, but I cannot bear to leave my plantings. Not yet. One fat bud like a moon on the white tree peony.

The bitch of a camellia would rather die than grow in my garden. So be it then.

J took the money and ran. I can scarcely believe the invariability of my credulity, my folly. I miss him, though, and the sadness is not tempered even by indignation.

Splendid session with Whitman in poetry class. At least I thought it was splendid. I can’t get through the poems without sobbing. I think I can’t quite hide it from them. If they are also moved to tears by a line, a passage, I wish they would tell me, so I could rest in peace. I tell them there are lines that make you bash your head against a wall, and they think I’m joking.

Embarrassing dream. The movie star Brad Pitt, when he was younger, helped to build my house. He came back for a visit, dazed a little by fame, wanting to “get away from it all.” As soon as he entered the house, the walls fell off. So there is Brad Pitt, helping to rebuild my house. You’d think my dreams could have put such a one to better use.