I sift quietly the afternoon alone. Rain comes in from the west. The last tomatoes from the garden sliced and salted to be laid aside fish. How sad I am, and have been, and yet how grateful. My teachers have been good ones, often unintentionally.
Two days ago driving over the mountain I remembered an old poem of hers and wanted to stop, pull over, call her, and say "my God, you have to read Lorine Niedecker." I did pull over, but I've long since forgotten her number, and it's past that time where you call someone to say, I was thinking of you . . . Later, reading Niedecker myself thought, well, she'll find her soon enough. If she's meant to. And anyway, I'm happier now . . .
Though for the past couple of weeks my stomach has ached the way it used to years ago when the doctors were predicting my imminent death. And I can't sleep for shit. Even now I sit on the couch, writing patiently in the only form I can bear at the moment, with a sense my body is going to simply crumple into itself, like the leaves with which I am so enamored of late. Oh well. I'm in the thick of what I wanted and there's no going back.
It's true that love isn't personal in the truest sense, but for most of us that's just intellectual pap. Pretending we're beyond it spiritually is just another way of keeping God at a distance. Our hearts quicken when touched a certain way. Why fight it? Longing is not a crime and kisses aren't either.
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