August 23, 2019

Early morning, dark and quiet. This is the anniversary of my art– 53 years as a writer. I will think of that tonight, for at night I sat down at my little desk beside my little window and wrote the first poem.

First week of class. Mostly well, but the percentage of inexplicably bitter students who want to be honored for what they know and who they are and are not particularly interested in learning grows year by year.

 

Thursday, my day off this semester, I went hiking north of I-40. The woods simmered with summer heat, and green, and stillness. I stumbled a couple of times with what I perceived then as balance issues, though I noticed my legs felt better afterward than they have in a while. Age makes you measure these things. Mother turkeys hurrying their chicks across roads and pathways. Went to our pretty-pathetic Nature Center afterwards. But it was full of children for whom it might as well have been the Amazon. All the cats were asleep. One could barely continue without having a nap oneself.

Jose Carasquillo at Ford’s Theater agrees to take a look at Father Abraham, though “we almost never take submissions.” Father Abraham begins locally on Sunday, a big reading I won’t be able to imagine till it happens.

AG is leaving the Magnetic. Shamed to think first thing, “What does it mean for me?” He’s off to West Virginia with his present companion, a woman of considerable allure.

Tobi assures me the re-named TUB has NOT been rejected.

First church choir and first AGMC rehearsals. WJ is late for rehearsal, and when he comes in the sweet tone of the tenors immediately becomes strident and off-key.

Hot days. One wilts like the flowers.