August 23, 2011

Poetry’s birthday.

The deep pink and the purple crape myrtles are blooming in my yard, golden tansy and one orange rose, and the browning-reddish-weed-looking thing I planted last year and forget the name of.

Rocky first day of class. I was unprepared, and my powers of improvisation were not at their height. A former student–looking indeed rough– haunted the halls, finally asking me for money, which I gave him. He has been unemployed since graduation, subsisting by applying for different graduate schools and, on the basis of his ability being admitted, and on the basis of his poverty given whopping assistance packages, which he used for subsistence. But now all of that is dried up, and he has no completed advanced degree and no means of support. He is also not quite sane, never was, which colors things a little, but not entirely. He claims even McDonald’s would not take him.

This was meant to be the summer of Lincoln in New York. Instead it is the summer of Zebulon Vance in Mars Hill. That is a perfection of irony. That about summarizes the whole thing, and I mean The Whole Thing.

Better second day of class. I was my old self. Early in the afternoon there was an earthquake. It was the strongest one I ever felt, and lasted long enough for me to wonder whether I should be crawling under a desk or something. Apparently it was a 5.9 centered somewhere in Virginia. Though it was not strong at all as those things go, the impression, while it was happening, was of irresistible power.

Ste sends a packet containing a pen, a sample of cologne, a photograph of himself, and a note. The note says, “I love you.” It’s something a boy would do, and its poignancy is greater for coming from a man.