May 9, 2020

Rose early. The garden I can see from the windows seems to have survived the much-threatened freeze.

Comments about my retirement food my Facebook page. Insofar as you divide your life into episodes and volumes, I think I am able now to look on “Teacher” as a Triumph. A+. “Student” was a solid A, but with too many blunders for those extra points.  This contrasts with “Son,” which I’d put at a wobbly “C.”  Lover? D-. I was one of those kids in the back row in math class, addressing themselves whole heartedly to every problem, but always coming up with the wrong answer. There may be something lucky about that in times to come: one fewer thing to hold one to a darkening shore.
Started and drove my pick-up. It’s not been turned over since early March, and it started right up, drove like a dream.

 Achy. The long convalescence begins

The god of my garden became visible to me today. He’s a brawny ginger lad about 6'6". His name is Aengus. Of course he is Aengus Og come from across the sea to the prayers of one of his devotees. He wears a white Irish peasant shirt and white pants drawn at the waist, and he walks barefoot through the grass, smiling. He carried a spade glinting gold in the light. I think I was allowed to see him because last night I was embarrassed when I caught myself asking the Lord of Hosts to shield my garden from the cold. Aengus is exactly right. What he chooses for the garden I don’t know, but in the pure, diamond light of the spring evening he is a tower of white and rose flame.