Back From Vacation

I'm back at work this week, following a week off. Took my sons to Chincoteague and enjoyed the beach, the refuge, the pool, and the mini-golf for a few days, then decompressed for a couple more back here in DC before they went back to school and I returned to the office.

Before leaving I composed and revised a new poem:

On the Bus From Your House
(for Naomi)

Buckets of purple
flowers hang on all
the lampposts of
Georgetown you’d
probably know what
they are but you
are not here with me
I have crossed the river
not unfortunately Lethe
since I could use
perhaps a small draught
of forgetfulness to keep
your image from gazing
back at me from behind
my eyes when I should
be working or stop
the memory of your
voice from blocking
the sound of the telephone.

August 10, 2005

The .MP3 Blog Aggregator has disappeared (I had seen hints of trouble on it recently), so I have removed the link. Use Web Nymph; it's excellent and covers many topics besides music.

Happy 100th, Stanley Kunitz!

Stanley Kunitz is one of America's greatest living poets -- still living, in fact, on his one hundredth birthday today.

"In a murderous time

the heart breaks and breaks

and lives by breaking.

It is necessary to go

through dark and deeper dark

and not to turn.

I am looking for the trail.

Where is my testing-tree?

Give me back my stones!"

(from "The Testing Tree")