wash and wax the narrative, the car to turn to clearly but a break’s essential : all matters of revision, too : interplay of Caribbean poverty and Philadelphia do-gooders comes to mind now : also find reissued later in the day a heavy grocery supply-run to counter any desire to dine out (the big threat to me budget) also potted greenery to make this shell my candy camp all summer

intended a big breakfast but naw just too much on me plate already resigned to the longest grass on the block and not to shave subtract months in right blending mystery rather than clarity such essence of romance as I’m hoping get back to me when you can

beginning sabbatical read and sun with nature study scripture prayer and meditation to catch up and travel, minister, restore ‘ships and then put off hiking, avoid making to-do lists yet indulge that minor weekend correspondence just seems too much to handle again too long under that ambitious frustration by necessity what has always remained two-thirds unfinished dancing after all the floating deliberation now hard-working on this May your clean bean, dearly

there’ll be no gardening to ground down to the end of this place bitterly eliminating so much accumulation before swimming through the cloudy first day at liberty disregarding temptation right off the bat to say nothing of ferocious loving What discipline will emerge? except in the leaves of greenhorn pages there’s work awaiting, oh boy, I bought this overnight woods heavy and wet but daily shaving’s a pain so perhaps by the time thee sees me again I’ll be scraggly not paying bills is hardly superfluous still wish you were here on the trail

wouldja guess Maryland’s official sport is? jousting! (no, I wasn’t jesting, ’tis truly) these tabs from Fitzwilly’s and the Whitby Winery Uncle Charlie! what on earth’s on the radio? maps of New Haven and Providence sorry, such minutia, leisurely spans the Eastern Seaboard only to realize what had been removed to Tampa whoa! Prairie Home Companion it ain’t present background noise, roll the dial this rumbling would appreciate new Verdi’s Falstaff any better? reminded to pay bills, catch up hardly boring and ask how many of them practice, whatever . blessings, stick to it

Shakespeare or Shaw she was almost finished except for a chem’stry exam see how many of those medievalists still know what shapes up too content on minor correspondence, talking to yourself in equal measure

pattern of fern shadows cast by candles playing into snug culmination rented theaters where hillsides tottered in the unspoken gamble of her slightest motion, some indication if anyone commenced singing against the walls and ceiling of an unclothed expanse of potential a warm hand broaches, scratching its initials on frosted windows and then a lower back arched for precision a cappella with the choir we clocked a blizzard of treetop squirrels far below whatever our season and there you have it . tenderly

tracing the contours of a phantom state accounted for relentless confessions her glances endorsed the mountain ice fields above clouds juggling a chaste topography climax or spring tide shattered in a brutal outburst of emancipated crescendos how swell I thought sonatas scaling the savage exhilarating tempests . still she sought cinematic relics shelved along slender promontories where I stood wary of early snowfall or lightning in countless triangles or gale-force gusting with sleet we barely escape being tossed overboard or disemboweled on crags above tree line, its keepsakes reminding of her mercy when she sat on my lap in echoing climax

down for weeks on our heels constantly, commiserate how those children realize the glee of self-deception having lives of their own or a loving minute of introduction four-part cappella singing “Jesus Loves Me” at the reform school and then winter meeting in Fort Lauderdale lunch with Rukeyser and flew off to Chicago in windy subzero January the weekend the Los Angeles Rams stayed at our hotel before being trounced by the Bears and the city went ecstatic seemed appropriate to be flying out of town in that kind of hoopla for I was in new love, Praise the Lord, really, kiddos

should I have let all the correspondence lest it expire right there they’d mostly fall away in any case, too quickly ignoring the besotted side of Santa Claus beneath the chipper vocalizations, no dispatch of cards or presents the holidays came upon me to quickly, perhaps in part just constantly on the road; then, too, this felt so contrived and coerced compared to Christ’s power and expansive love I could see Christmas as an especially wicked flu to carry in such travels, wake up, voiceless, coughing and sore when we need rest more than carols and ditties, do tell