not exactly anywhere dutiful in all my difficulty gearing up for minor chores regular folks seem to enjoy defining their lives thereby at least scrubbing their ass break back to poverty, Dharma! would be scouring the bathtub one morning or a manuscript or adding oil to the leaky BMW such a thrill put aside long enough it evaporates two months overdue or just punctuates existence, the vacuum of rooms of the mind or the plate and so if one makes other things wait, yes, the grass grows or leaves fall in all that running as in down some sewer of household drain, so how would you handle a valet or fulltime maid

all a matter of adaptability, persistence, and resources, of creating right-sized parts, a turn, the way stars turn into snowflakes even in the Home Depot parking lot when a gull rises with a cookie positioned first as a propeller and then as a platter to be released shattering on the pavement the same way they drop shells onto rocks for feasting or at Squirrel’s office, a colleague takes fortune cookies and adds the words, “in bed” and she claims they all come true then, still, if he had a fortune, he’d build the soil to raise his ground taller than the neighbors, yes, that, or to reshape its wetness into sunken gardens vining with secrets, yet either way, imagine the scene from his mattress as geese fly past or in the ceiling, where mice still sound like rainfall

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