Day Two

7:26. The school bus has come and gone. The street has turned dark gray except under the cars parked at the curb where it remains dry. Nothing moves. Except my fingers and the candle flame. I noticed the other day that one of the two sycamores in the yard, the one I cannot see from my window has an orange band tied around it. I believe that means it is scheduled for execution. Perhaps euthenasia is more correct, as it seems to be unhealthy. The lower trunk and branches on one side are bare although a portion of the upper tree still live as if ignorant of what is happening to the rest. I am a poor judge of height (I remember learning a technique while in the Boy Scouts of estimating height by holding one's thumb up to it . . . but I do not remember how it went) but I would estimate the tree to be a good forty feet, about the same height as the one directly outside my window. It is sad to know the time is up for creations of such stature. It is for the best, I know. Preventive maintenance. The thing could blow over in a storm-- larger oak trees in neighborhood have met such fate and only by grace missed any houses as they topled). This particular tree is aimed more or less at the Princess Anne Hotel across the street. But predicting where trees will fall is tricky and I suppose it could be turned this way and my apartment is closest to it, being on the corner and the second floor.

A couple walks by in the mist. Casually dressed. For recreation or work? They move at a brisk pace with no jackets, no umbrella. A car slips down Furman, turns toward town on Chestnut, then another, a white sedan, of recent vintage, the shape of a Toyota Avalon, appropriate car for moving in the mist.

I read Whitman (in "Good Poems") this morning, from Song of Myself. It is also the song of everyone. I wonder how long it took him to write those three pages, did he take notes of people he saw over time, or did he just describe them from remembered images? THen a couple of pages of Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Goal. About an execution by hanging. I'm sixty four, with a birthday coming in a couple of weeks, and I've never read Wilde. Have seen some plays (notably The Importance of Being Ernest in which my daughter performed!) and movies of his work-- oh, yes, we read The Portrait of Dorian Gray in high school. I have acquired a collection of his work (although for reasons not germaine to this writing, I may have to give it up) and for some reason began my trek through his oevre with that poem. Could be the first thing in the book! I am discovering the lineage of poetry. How much Rexroth and Simic and Merwin owe directly to Wordsworth and Whitman and, of course, the Bard.

I passed the Unitarian Universalist church of which I am a member a few months ago and noted the sign and cars reminding me the annual book sale was underway. I decided I would return after running my errands and if there was a collected works of Shakespeare, I would buy it. I'm not making this up. When I returned, I went first to the poetry table. And there it was, no kidding, The Shakespeare, The Complete Works. And in print of a size that even my aging eyes can read. $4.00!! There are some markings presumably made by a student (or students). But they are isolated. I have also not read Shakespeare since high school. I began with the sonnets and have read now 26 of them. I began reading Othello. A challenge for me is that most of my recreational reading is done at night in bed. The book is too big to hold comfortably there. (It is a big book after all, the complete works and all . . .) We'll see.

I also picked up again this morning Annie Dillard's Living Fiction. She is writing in the passage I read about "device" and "technique" in fiction, contending that a work of fiction is the device, that device and technique while accepted in other forms of art have acquired a bad name in fiction. (the book was written almost thirty years ago). I think I understand what she is getting at.

We are at 31 minutes now. I will close. A note for those who may just be starting to read this. These morning pages are unedited. I assume there will be typos, grammatical errors, etc.
Namaste.