March 5, 2019

I believe I sold Whitman to my 8 o'clock.

Read “Ash Wednesday” to my poetry class.

“Se Vuol Cantare” is a view into my past, exorcising Mr Fillmore and all that. Once in that country, I had a look around.

I remembered the first day of first grade when we kids from Goodview walked to school together. Our parents had set it up so we could go in a protective mob. Once we got to Newton Street, the kids ran away from me into the Park. It was not an accident, not an incident. They turned and shouted at me “You can’t run. You can’t keep up.”   They had contrived together to mock me and leave me behind. I said, “Of course I can keep up,” and I ran across the street to them, but my heart burned inside me. I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was going to die. I knew I had a “bad heart,” but I’d found ways of avoiding crises until that day. From then on I walked to school alone, or with one or two who had not gone in the group that day.

I remembered being on the great ballfield in Maytree, the first time I ever played baseball. I watched carefully to get the rules. When I got up to bat, there was a cry of “easy out! Easy out!” and all the fielders ran in close. I had never had a bat in my hand in my hand before. How did they know I was an easy out? I was so mortified I set the bat down and walked away. Unless forced or coerced, I never played baseball again.

These things are as clear as if they happened yesterday. That is a gift to a poet, and a curse to the man.