Thursday, May 19, 2005

The Great Clouds The great clouds unfurled their hair. I wept with them in dream after dream through a month of long nights to the drumming of nervous fingers on the tin roofs of the outbuildings. Now, just when I decide they're right about the dirty world and all its sorrows, they pull themselves together, bind their tresses up with little pins, lift their crinolines and drift away. As though embarrassed in light of day by their inebriated nights-before. As though all we've been through together means nothing to them, and they'd prefer not to remember, thank you very much. Just like that they weigh anchor and leave me And I'm bereaved and blinking in the dazzle of a stark bootstrap afternoon. And all I can think to do is resume my drills in botanical Latin and learn my colors again from scratch. 11:34:09 AM    comment []

Regret Groggy today. Stayed awake too late. The book I read was just too good. Plus, I indulged in an ill-advised spate of late-night flirtation via poem. Which I regret this morning, as I surely suspected I would. A blast of agitated, chocolate- fueled insomniac elation. One ought never to correspond at night. Dorothy Parker said it, and she was right. But I am ever the last to benefit from so well-aphorized a warning. 11:33:10 AM    comment []

Leo Leopold, a mackeral tabby, middle name Longshanks because he's lean and tall, last name Likitung because he kisses his mistress's hand, watches the starling couple come and go from under the eaves, where their nest is. Leo crouches distantly, his cream-and-umber a cloud on the blue roof where he so quietly observes the nervous birds parenting their family. Leo doesn't get why they seem upset to spot him slouched there. He's only curious to watch their offspring try their little wings and other things. Why should they be so furious? 11:26:02 AM    comment []