April 23, 2011

Haverty’s delivered my furniture, and I spent part of the day gardening and part of the day working my book collection from one case to another, discarding, in the meantime, the complete Paulist Press series of Western Spirituality that I was saving for a time of calm perusal that never came. Thousands of dollars lost to me from a time when I was counting every penny, though not quite wasted, as Thomas Murphy says he wants them as he begins his career in the priesthood. Their gathering dust unopened had been weighing on my mind. What I have not been doing is giving any thought to Holy Saturday, though the service tonight may do that, if I can keep from my mind bitterness at the length of it. Holy Week used to be so special to me. There are several poetry cycles to honor the days and stages of it, but that is gone away. In my life God’s betrayals are more obvious than his benefits, and I cannot set my anger–even my contempt–aside long enough to regain the old spirit. I’m like a child ejected from his home by a bad father, standing outside, looking through the windows, but having neither the will nor very much of the desire to walk back in and start it over. What guarantee– not even guarantee, but hint– would there be that it would be any different? Even children of the Spirit must leave home and light out on their own.

I have rearranged most everything in the house, and the cats explore and climb and curl up for a moment, trying out new spaces.

Carolyn has been generating huge quantities of garbage. The bags pile up till the cover of the waste bin cannot be closed, and at morning there is a big black crow on top picking gashes in the black bags. A striking image, if a terrible mess by garbage pick-up day. I’m guessing that she means to depart without going through the process of selling her house. She told me once there was some irregularity with the deed, and it is clear from my window that there are severe foundation problems. I’ll watch through the summer and see. My dream is to buy her lot, level her awful house, extend my garden.

Voodoo lily coming up through the dirt like a red thumb. The towhees, sir and madam, are the blessed spirits of my porch.