Chaucer

 

June 7, 2021

Bear on the roof this morning. The only way he could get up there was to climb the black cherry tree, and that took him inches from the window of the bedroom where I slept. Wondrous stealth.

We rehearsed half an hour yesterday. Katie was satisfied and let us go into the afternoon heat. In the parking lot I encountered a former student, who had been in the Drama department. He recounted his adventures in trying to make a career in acting, arriving at places like Providence and Portland after the local theaters had already held auditions. He gratified me by remembering my lecture on Metaphysical poetry, in which I used the Police’s “King of Pain” as an example. The things people remember, the things people forget. He also remembered taking a course in Chaucer from me, which never happened. “Whenever I think of Chaucer, I think of you.” Well, good. He looked trim and healthy and muscular. When his dreams of theater went away, he began teaching pre-school. 

First copies of Washington Place in the mail.

For a few minutes in the afternoon, the gentlest rain imaginable, gray, translucent, solemn.