Old

 

November 16, 2021

Clouds outside the tiny study window. I edged the thermostat up an degree last night, unable to get warm. Finally only a hot toddy would do. 

The first word from Kelsay is that they want me to move all the lines of my poems to the left margin, I having given them half an inch indentation. As far as I know this means going to each line and backspacing them one by one, a tedium which made me seriously consider cancelling the publication. So far I’ve done three poems. It’s better in one way, though: some of my lines are so long they had to be split; the new margins allow me, in most cases to restore the original cadence. The poems, reading as I edit, are smart and dry, and unlike my other collections. Everything I’ve done has been unlike the one before, which is probably a fault, brand-wise, but out of my control.

Linda called to chat yesterday, and I confessed my unease about the Israel trip. The truth finally came out of my mouth: I don’t know how to be old. 

Listened to the recording of the 125th anniversary Evensong, ruined, I thought, by a microphone’s being right in an alto’s mouth and she pretty much all that can be heard. It was an event fully predictable. Not that she sounded bad. She sounded fine. But–

Tremendous progress on The Garden of the Bears. Fully joyful at least in that.