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Monthly Archives: February 2008

On being detail oriented in nature

Which is a funny phrase in and of itself.
An old journal entry. I wrote that an ex-mother-in-law once decried: “You notice everything!” and I felt bad about it. Yet it was/is a good thing to note on a resume “detail oriented.” As well, later my writing was praised for my “fine eye for detail.” Later [...]

Running, writing, being driven

The project continues; it’s going to take some time, reading these journals accumulated from the past years. I had made a decision and an effort not to document or talk about my running in the notebooks, as I’d, after all, kept some other records when I was in training for, say, a particular race or [...]

Bits of Tree of Smoke

Because it’s fresh on my mind, just having had with a friend a conversation about it — Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke — and because I seem to, it turns out, mention in passing something I’m reading without ever saying more — always meaning to, of course — always thinking I’ll come back to this [...]

What’s right in the world

Woke up to icy rain, so we decided to delay our drive home (from Ann Arbor) until later hours when the ice pellets would become rain — after 10:00, said the weather report. Until just moments ago, then, the sound of C’s fingers on his keys: a few solid hours of work for him on [...]

Love poem, Derek Walcott

Love After Love
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your [...]

The third roué

It must be coming. Because that’s always the way it works, the odd word showing up again and again and again.
Roué.
First, The Long Embrace, Judith Freeman:
12/11/48 TO CHARLES MORTON, EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY: [from Raymond Chandler]
I am a very happy man. I haven’t a brain in my head, an idea on my mind, or [...]

Whatever it was I was supposed to be


Wherever it was
I was supposed to be
this morning–
whatever it was I said I would be doing–
I was standing
at the edge of the field–
I was hurryingthrough my own soul,
opening its dark doors–
I was leaning out;
I was listening
– Mary Oliver, Mockingbirds excerpt
Not too sorry to see January go — it’s a month with anniversaries of a [...]