April 1, 2021

Damaging wind through the night. I had to go looking for my empty aluminum barrel.

Sweetboi and Denise came separately today, he just after dawn, she at about noon; he on the fence, close enough that I could touch him if I dared; she very high up so, if I were she, I would be dizzy looking down. Double-dipping. Maybe they have chicks already and not a moment to lose. 

Thursdays are problematic because I have to find something to do while the cleaning lady is here. No one said I couldn’t be here while they work, but I remember being a house cleaner myself back in New York, and how nobody was ever there. That seemed the way to do it. Today I went to the river office, took up old poems– by old I mean 1974, 1978– and reworked them. It was fun picking those old strands out of the weave. They were still alive, still workable, still issues. To some degree, purity was the reason my early poems weren’t better than they were. I was satisfied with setting down exactly what the vision of the moment revealed, without the luxurious sidesteps and detours that bring a little width to the work. I left the reader only one or two gates by which to enter. I heard only the one strong voice and wasted the echoes.