January 19, 2017

S came to visit the first morning before my first class. I am to measure this against the vacancy, and I do.

The prayer plant is so called, I discover, because it folds its hands by night.

Sagging back into a darkness. I have to remember how I came out of it before. Still skating on the surface, but I hear the depths foaming out of my thoughts. Maybe Greensboro will help. Read Jarrell to my class yesterday; maybe I’ll make a Jarrell pilgrimage while I’m in his former neck of the woods.  Worried about staying awake through the drive, which will begin at about my nap time. The Night Music magazine article appeared. I am quoted accurately, though of course the most off-hand item transfigured into the headline.

I have been trying to write “Crossing Jesus Green” for fifty years. It needed to be epic, metaphysical, summarizing, glorious. Accomplished it two days ago. It is small, in some ways perfect, but in no way epic. Milton started at one end of the Green, Herrick walked out the other side.