I was standing in our sixth floor hotel room window watching cars silently move below me in a famous city we were visiting.  Again it occurred to me that there are all these things & places that are said to exist & events that are said to exist, but how can they exist unless I experience them myself.  The old problem: the hackneyed wooden wagon that wanders the streets of the mind calling for dead cinder filled ash boxes & vials of gathered pollen & stamens for cures.  The herbivores congested with swarms of teeth.  The talk of it all amongst the neophytes, the glib news subscribers.  The unemployed instrument tuners.

What a collection of wine-stained tapestries.

Beauty has not died of sweat or starvation.

I suppose the series of rather inarticulate notes I pounded out upon the piano in the church as a child were not composed measures but a song still.  I welcome sleep by thinking “oh so long ago, so long ago.”  What in the world that won’t affect my dreams I will. Attending the national pastime with parasols & Russian novels.  Falsettoed ceilings of azure.  Anything brought back from ruin.  The first cup I shattered whole again.  The cup of my friend’s childhood.  The anniversary of your voice.  You, the last word, you.