March 13, 2011

Slept twelve hours last night. Lay down after I got back from the studio around 4. Woke after 8, shut the door, turned off the lights. The last thing I remember until waking at 4 this morning was thinking, “I wonder if I’ll be able o get back to sleep.” Virus and exhaustion. The dreams were prolonged and elaborate. In one I had bought an enlarged version of my apartment house in Syracuse, at the edge of Thornden Park. Even dealing with very bizarre tenants, I seemed to attack the labor of landording with gusto.

Saw the toadshade spreading out its weird mottled leaves. I pried the ivy from around it, leaving it a dancing floor. One white bud announced the emergence of the bloodroots. I cleared the wild strawberry from around them. This was a delicate operation. I had to hold the dirt down around the fuzzy fine bloodroot stems while the other hand uprooted the strawberries, slowly, delicately. One apologizes to the strawberries, but they are unoffendable; they invite themselves in again at the next opportunity. Planted the white sorrel everyone sells as shamrocks this time of year. Perhaps they are shamrocks. I have never seen any in Ireland, and what the Irish told me of them conflicts suspiciously.

My father’s 92nd birthday, When someone is dead, one thinks about them with more confidence, like an archaeologist digging up a lost city, knowing nothing more is going to change but the interpretation.