Frederick

 September 14, 2026

Hot day of the endless summer. I really don’t mind if it’s endless. The sweatshirt I bought to wear to choir camp was far too warm. 

Unexpected and thorough remake of The Last Poet. Its problems were so easy to fix I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. Often when I return to a piece I realize I simply gave up, imagining it was “good enough” since nobody was ever going to see it anyhow. In some ways The Last Poet is my best, at least the “best” piece that people are likely to understand the first time through. Were they ever to see it. 

I am Charlie Brown and God is Lucy. 

Enormous, enduring dreams. Getting up from the bed to use the bathroom is like doing so in a cinema. Last night at one point I was a Hollywood dancer.

HART announces its season. It too abandons serious theater. 

I have a new grand-nephew, Frederick. Not informed, but read of it on Facebook. 

Lake Logan

 September 13, 2026

Weekend spent at Lake Logan at choir camp. Hated it the least in memory. A red-shouldered hawk awaited me when I pulled into the lodge parking. In remarkably good voice. My frozen dozens of Christmas cookies finally found consummation. Arrived home and slept four hours. 

I experiment with PT on Tuesday, which is well, for I could barely make it up the modest slope between the dining hall and the lodge. 

 September 11, 2026

Terrible anniversary. Everybody of a certain age has something to remember.

Revision of plays that will never be done, better and better, pearls lying in a sealed casket. 

Can’t write a sentence without making two typos

AVLGMC last night. Labor over music not worth laboring over, everything chosen with an eye to mediocrity. Calculated mediocrity is even worse than organic mediocrity. Thomas leaves the rehearsal room for a while, then mopes in the car about not getting any of the solos. I agree it is absurd. He would have been the best, but something else was in the mix. Best doesn’t matter anymore. When do I decide what to do about it? 

Great joy last night when two screech owls came to my trees, gurgling and ghosting in the darkness. I loved them utterly. 

 September 8, 2026

Roaring of machinery. My vegetation keeps me from seeing if I’m blocked in or not. 

Spotted one of my feral kittens, them I watched just after birth playing on the porch, with the ugly brindled fur. I see one or the other of them from time to time down at the tool shed, where they might abide. This one was unkempt and horribly skinny. I explained to him if he’d just let me pick him up I’d feed him and care for him and he could sleep on a pillow on my bed, but he was not persuaded. Certain souls run from all comforts. They must have their reasons. 

Symphony Chorus, Carmina Burana. I think I had fun.

 September 7, 2026

Lovely Labor Day, cool, the sky an agate of grayish variety.

Finished They’ll Need to Know What River It Is after almost finishing it last night. 

The aerator will have to be cleaned every three days. That’s still better than not knowing what to do and not knowing how to do it. 

Choir returned to St George’s Sunday. 

Stupendous volley of fireworks last night. I’ve never heard the like, and couldn’t decide just what they were. They must have been quite close. By the time I got my shoes on to explore, it was over. I keep to myself the fact that I rather like them. 

The long-awaited AS Window book came out, and is a major disappointment. Almost every one of the photographs is bad–what is a photo book without the photographs?–reproduced in a way that flattens and pales all features and makes everything look grossly overexposed. It may be the fault of trying to economize on paper stock. The text is limp where it might have sparkled. I offered a dozen times to help. The lay-out looks like somebody’s uncritiqued first draft. Even the fonts are weird. The hope to use this is a fund-raising device is not going to be fulfilled. The unexpected shadow is that D was the energy behind this project, and how could he be feeling after years of preparation? The next part is that D’s son drowned in Lake Michigan two days ago. You leave all the threads on the ground, hoping they find a way to untangle themselves. 

September 3, 2026

Exhausting, extended head wave. I’d hate to be one of my plants, standing in the sun all day.

Lunch with DJ. After 15 years he’ll be missing his week at the beach.

AVLGMC rehearsal. B has found a process to insure mediocrity for the foreseeable future. The part of me that recognizes that this is no longer my concern needs to convince the rest. 

Nearly hit a bear on the street while driving Thomas home. They are very black. We need to furnish them with those reflecting vests repairmen wear. In the car Thomas discussed my being Virgo, saying it was exactly right for me, being so grounded and all. I do in fact feel grounded, rooted, founded. Trying not to let that become “immovable.”  

 September 2, 2026

Contributed to Jamie Ager’s campaign. Used to buy his produce at the Farmers’ Market

Birthday yesterday. Went to the Fresh Market for my free slice of cake. Early (before 9 and the slamming down of the Great Heat) it was weeding and dead-heading, whereby I’m covered with little cuts. Looks like I warred with a gang of cats. 

Symphony Chorus is now gigantic, and has a new director, J, who’s also taken the reins at First Baptist. Different in many ways from K, similar in other ways. It’s good to get a fresh start with a new conductor. J takes things less personally. Sat beside tall John who is from Eau Claire, WI, and worked in IT, but left his job to explore new options. Good voice, minimal reading skills. That’s why he has me. R, our president, looked incredibly sexy with his new hair cut. Does no one notice this but me? 

Stock portfolio is today half as much in the red as it was a while ago.

 August 30, 2026

Day of many chores accomplished, but that is little to write about. Trump cuts down the Japanese cherry trees around the Mall in DC in order to expand a golf course. His depravity– and hence the depravity he valorizes in others– is difficult to comprehend. Lazy in all other things, Trump is energetic and concentrated when it comes to cruelty, maybe because he can get others to act on his behalf. His central delight is destroying what is precious to others, there being nothing precious to him beyond his own corrupt flesh and devouring greed. MAGA cannot help following his lead. He has somehow made actions they would otherwise deem horrifying palpable, even advanced. When he fails, his failure must be final and all-embracing, every Trumpian thought and remnant rooted out. Every ICE officer, every government functionary must face the charge and explain why they should not be removed from public life. Toleration will not work here. The evil is too great. The cruelty is too gleeful. The merciless are the one group who deserve no mercy. 

Pure

 August 29, 2026

A day of the most miraculous labor and inspiration, the words flowing out like drops from a fountain. I have days like this, nights like this from time to time, rare, but in a long life, enough to come to know and understand. My fingers on the keyboard could do no wrong. I remember this from when I began. I do know that, as far as the quality of my own life, nothing will come of it, and yet I commit, I go forward, as aside from all consequence, it is beautiful. I am ot deceived, Lord. I know that you will negate all consequence. What does it say of me that that does not matter? For tonight I am pure.

 August 28, 2026

The King of Norway is dead. Glad he lived to see his country so beloved at the World Cup. 

AVLGMC rehearsal last night. Huge now. One of the new recruits is in fact a woman, who turns out to have been my student my first years at UNCA and to have adored me, so that is a corner turned with unexpected ease. She showed me a photo of her quite beautiful son, who didn’t exist when we had class together Final triumph of bad music now that no one remains to fight for the Muse. 

Disproportional fit of rage yesterday when the pond aerator didn’t work AGAIN. I’m glad there’s space between me and the next dwellings, for the explosion was loud and sustained. The guy at Jesse Israel asked me if I had cleaned the filters, and I had not. I came home certain that cleaning the filters would not help, but I cleaned then, and the water geysered out ten inches above the pipe, singing like a river. Pond is more aerated than it’s ever been. Me considering why I think every glitch is a sign of the gods arrayed against me. 

 August 26, 2026

TV last night was largely Dolly Parton eulogies, very much of a piece, which I suppose is the mark of a coherent life. The alternative was a documentary about Mary Oliver on PBS, which I watched in small horror as long as I could stand it. Couldn’t keep out of my mind the litany, “I’m ten times better– where’s my documentary?”

 August 25, 2026

Dolly Parton is dead.

Lunch with SS. We’re gloomy about our craft and our futures, and yet plunge ahead. His stamina exceeds mine as the heavens are high above the earth. 

Finished An Age of Silver one hour before lunch.

I am a bard with no tribe to sing the songs to.

I am a storyteller with no one listening. 

I have perfected an art that no one needed. 

It was impossible to see this coming–or, if it was possible, I was too blinded by love.

I look back and find no place where I might have taken another path, where I might have turned around. 

One cannot even cry out, as infinite lives are laid to infinitely greater waste. 

Sweet moon in the south, rounding the corners of the garden. 

 August 24, 2026

Back to the de-vining. The weather was so perfect I didn’t even break a sweat. 

Results of AVLGMC auditions posted. If I can judge from names we have accepted two women. I asked myself if I really care, and I really don’t. My conviction that not everything should be diluted and made like every other thing is intellectual and not, perhaps, essential. I cannot uphold everything, or perhaps anything at all.  This should be, and may be some day, a relief. 

Anniversary

 August 23, 2026

Sixty years ago tonight I sat at my desk in my little green room in Akron and wrote my first poem. I was so happy. The walls and roof opened around me, and nothing encased me but the immensity of the world. I was so sad, because the occasion of the poem was sad, but I was also so happy. Wrote out the poem this morning to be sure that I remembered it.

Tackled the great billows of morning glory that took over most of the gardens. In terms of the sheer volume of plant material uprooted, this was the among the most productive days ever in the garden. I was a botano-archaeologist, uncovering lost cultures buried under pretty but consuming vines.