Journal of a Sabbatical

April 16, 2001

abstract brass people

National Poetry Month Poet of the Day:
Kobayashi Issa

Today's Reading: A Visit to India, China, and Japan in the Year 1853 by Bayard Taylor

Today's Starting Pitcher:
Frank Castillo

Abstract

 

Brass People

 

Ouch, I really am older than dirt. I am so old that to my generation W.H. Auden was best known for his poem in memory of W.B. Yeats, not for the poem in Four Weddings and a Funeral. I think I was already nearly as old as dirt when that movie came out. I think I saw it on an airplane. I don't remember it. Anyway I've come to appreciate Auden's In Memory of Yeats more as I've gotten older. "What instruments we have agree, the day of his death was a dark, cold day." Thing is when I memorized it in high school, another one of those poems Sister Eudes made us learn by heart, I'm sure I memorized it as "All the instruments agree" but when I bought Nancy a Complete Works of Auden a few years back we were both surprised to discover that he had revised it to "What instruments we have". Whether it's all the instruments or only the ones we have, it's still a great poem.

I am so older than dirt that I remember that TV commercial "New Ajax Laundry Detergent. Stronger than dirt." I'd sing it for you all but the microphone has become detached from the computer and I can't find it anywhere. Can you say "cat toy"? I knew you could.

Favorite poets besides Basho: Issa, Ryokan, Du Fu, Cold Mountain, Amy Clampit, Donald Hall, Whittier (yeah, yeah, I know , soooo old-fashioned, but spiritual truth comes in many guises), Mary Oliver, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, oh how could I forget Emily Dickinson brain must have been skipping a beat ... how public like a frog old pond jumped in sound of water water everywhere here a where there a where everywhere a where water comes together with other water in justspring when the world is mudlucious and the little wee balloon man whistles far and wee so much depends on a red wheelbarrow on a wet bough so sweet and so cold ...

The trouble with stream of consciousness word association poetry fragment connecting is cat jumps on keyboard, neighbor's car alarm goes off, phone rings, house settles, and you sneeze and lose the spontaneity.

Favorite subways besides Boston: Montreal, Budapest, Beijing

Favorite sport besides baseball: sumo

And y'know what? I believe in Global Warming. So there.