March 31, 2021

More rain, more roaring rain. It’s like a sea with one wave rolling forward forever.

My pair of thrushes put in their first spring appearance. They seemed joyful diving among the wet leaves. 

Sweetboi perched on the fence and screamed, and I threw him his meat. FS says I cold train him to take food from my hand, but that responsibility is too great.

Intense dance rehearsal this morning. I felt good, stretched-out, afterwards. Ann is distressed that she dances so feebly at 74. I find it hilarious to be dancing at all. Rather like it. Had I been a different person, with a different body and different health, I might have pursued it. 

The first day I didn’t have to take aspirin against the pain in my tooth. . . or in the crater of my tooth. 

Wild Honeysuckle

 

March 30, 2021

Focused attack on the wild honeysuckle, south and west.  Opened up a little space by the street, into which I’ll put the mallow I bought at Reems Creek. Unburying hellebore and rose in the space beside the driveway. Planted a forlorn half-price delphinium that had fallen behind some tables at the nursery. Rescue flower. 

Palm Sunday

 

March 28, 2021

Palm Sunday. Read the Passion on ZOOM this AM, then motored to All Souls to record the Good Friday music, including Tallis’ “That Virgin’s Child.” I sounded good, I thought, though it was hard to catch a full breath behind the mask. Low notes in particular require a measure of wind. More rain. The cedar rejoices in my having placed him in the ground at exactly the right moment. 

Quick, violent

 

March 27, 2021

My garden grows beautiful, yellow and purple.

Quick, violent storm early in the afternoon. 

Discovered I have an app on my phone that allows me to tape the ruined refund check back together, photograph it, make a distanced and virtual deposit. It worked!

KP leaves UNCA to become director of the Bascom Museum. One prays that position will give her less scope for ruin and mendacity. Foolish, destructive woman. During UNCA’s autopsy, her footprint will be among those found on its neck.

Forty-Seven Years

 

March 26, 2021

Mother has been dead 47 years. 

Almost unbelievable rains last night, Alabama stricken with tornados. When I briefly looked out the window, all shown green and new here. 47 years ago, in Ithaca, it was frozen and snowing. 

Let days pass without writing here. Don’t know what I was doing instead. 

Ann says she’s satisfied with the progress of our dance. I strive not to imagine what I look like. 

Returned to the Y early yesterday morning. Of course, after a year’s absence, I overdid it. We politically correct people pretend it’s not hard wearing a mask and exercising, but it is.

Tooth still hurts. Maybe it’s a ghost tooth now. Called the dentist to leave me scrip for antibiotics. 

ZOOM reading for the UNCA Queer Conference. Three poems. 

Rehearsal for ZOOM Passion Reading for Palm Sunday. Mark, to my ears the least heard of them. I’d forgotten the poor fig tree. That part is not often read. 

Planting today if the ground is not completely sodden. Work on The Garden of the Bears if it is.

Evening: Planting it was, and strenuously: a whole plot reclaimed from weeds and bamboo, in which is now set a host of scarlet canna. Also, calla and an Alaska cedar. The cedar look a little ragged, but I would too had I been in a box several days. 

Found mail sodden in the bed of my truck. Most of it I threw away, but the official looking pieces I lay on the front porch to dry in the sun. One was a $2600 check, part of my mortgage refinancing.  That, of course, I tore a little. We’ll see if they take it. 

Summer hot. I am almost comfortable. 

 March 22, 2021

JD writes of a piece I gave Megan twenty years ago: It’s a helluva lot more aesthetically pleasing than frenetic vomit Jonas Gerard has been unloading on dim witted tourists for decades. Maybe Dr. David Hopes should have a wall in the airport celebrating his artistic contributions to Asheville...

Ann finishes our dance. I have 5 weeks to get it right, and I think that might be possible. 

I asked H to write a blurb for The Ones with Difficult Names, and what she comes up with is :The Ones with Difficult Names moves the reader through a geography of public spaces and innermost mind across a time during which public spaces became, to us, possibly gone forever. This possibility arches over the poems as humans and animals alike seek escape, support, distraction, and love while the abyss gazes back in at them. It is a difficult and soul-opening collection. While reading, I felt the truth and fragility of life creeping up on me. After reading them, I felt the poet sitting beside me, assuring me I’m unalone. The truth is you’ve allowed my heart to feel what it’s been afraid to or did and I missed it. ❤ 

I don’t understand a word of it. I don’t even know what she is making reference to.  What am I supposed to do? Rely on the probability that she’ll never see the finished book? I feel bad, though, that one of my friends wouldn’t make an effort. She could just have said “no.” 

 

March 21, 2021

Realizing I haven’t left the house, except to patrol the yard and check out what I thought was a camera hidden in my holly trees. It wasn’t. Corrected, for the moment, DSL. The squirrels keep gnawing at the suet cage though it is quite empty. Habit? Still some taste on the wires? Tooth still aching, though more distantly than before. My hatred of the repetitious kicks in even as the actual pain lessens. Praise for my paintings on Facebook this afternoon. Too late. Though, if I had the space, I would paint again.