January 4, 2020

Day of intense writing. Assembled a whole new volume of mostly lately revised poetry, Before The Flight. I realize that quality is largely irrelevant, but it is very, very good.

Circe leaves rosettes of bloody drool on the comforter. Yet she rises up, eats, moves from sleeping place to sleeping place, accepts caresses. I don’t know what to do.

Bright for a while this afternoon, now the sky is cold and dark and wintery, I suppose as it ought to be. A wild cat took shelter in the cooler I’d left drying on the porch.

There is a war between what is and what pretends to be, and everywhere I look is a battleline or a battlefield. Our President is the archetype of Gluttony pretending to be a statesman; our government is a vandal pretending to protect the world; the corporations try to gobble up the future while giving us enough of the bounty to let it happen; our universities (mine, anyway) allow just enough learning to conceal that they are no longer concerned with learning. Again I must say I don’t know what to do. I have not lost every battle, but neither have I won that many. . . at best beaten a few demons to a draw. Lord, if I knew what to do I would do it. Or, perhaps I do know what to do, and am doing it, and you aren’t helping that much. 

Huge fights on Facebook about the appearance of Jesus. I love that we draw lines and hurl missiles over what cannot possibly be known.

Russell and Maria lovely on Facebook with a rendition of “In the Bleak Midwinter” on toy instruments.