Dear Sir,
Perhaps I’ll go back downtown while I’m here in Asheville and grab that Yeats from the poetry corner of the bookstore. I’ve not read any Yeats as of yet. I passed on it the other day because I figured there’d be some W.B. on the bookshelves in Mom’s library. But alas, all I found here this morning is a biography. And from the two or three random lines I read, I think I certainly should read Yeats. He knew something.
I’m reading Voltaire while I’m here, from a worn, red volume; another book I’d like to restore for another life. I read The Princess of Babylon and The White Bull over a couple nights—-“Long live great Nebuchadnezzar, king of kings, who is no longer an ox.” Before I leave here I intend to read The Philosophy of History, Zadig, and The Ignorant Philosopher, which sounds like a lot of reading for me but this copy is old and tattered and smells just right and who knows when it will be in hand again. I must seize every opportunity to read for I have found no such conversation in this vulgar and mundane world of living mortals. It could be that I habitually keep the wrong company. Though, the mortals know where to find good coffee and beer, and all the birds are here to keep me company today. I’m talking to a yellow finch here in front of me now and there’s a catbird listening in on my right flank. I’m out back beside the white crepe myrtle in the clover.
These days I subsist on Boca burgers with lettuce & tomato, alfalfa & radish sprouts, and catsup & spicy brown mustard on ciabatta rolls, peanut butter & cherry jam on bagels, some sort of bran kibble & blueberries in oat milk (Gosh, do I miss milk!), chocolate covered almonds, classic literature, poetry, coffee of course, grapefruit (Great day! I found a grapefruit spoon in the cupboard.), Perfect Day IPA, hummus & crudités, and baseball. Life is good.
A Bullock’s oriole has just arrived, flitting through the trees and vines on the other side of the fence. I’m trying to talk it in to the crepe myrtle with the honey bees for a closer look but I do not know the language. Perhaps it is a Baltimore oriole but it seems way too small, especially for this time of year. The last Baltimore oriole I saw ‘round here was plump as an orange tennis ball. Here it is now, in close, a respite from chasing bugs, definitely not a Baltimore, black mask about the eyes, slight but not so slight as a sparrow, my best guess is a Bullock’s. A rare spot in these parts. Lucky day. I usually have far too much weight in my pockets as it is but I should carry a small pair of binoculars. Also here now: the finch, the catbird, two cardinals mating on a bough, and a cicada so large I mistook it for a bird.
Today I read an article about aero- and fluid dynamics and fractal patterns in the chaos, maybe the only patterns in chaos if you’re really looking hard enough to make sense of the mysteries in nature. And thank Mother Nature I did because right after that I read an essay or poem, not yet sure which, by Gertrude Stein and it damn near made sense and left me hankering, left me a hungry hankering for scrambled eggs. I also spent a good piece of my morning contemplating how Time, all of Time past-present-future, all Time exists and has always existed and of how I may be a slice of bread, or piece of toast if you like, and also of how I could send a letter or a postcard to a friend in another age or dimension, that is if it is properly addressed and is affixed with enough postage in the form of Forever stamps.
Tonight I’m getting dressed up to go lean on the end of the mantel in Ms. Stein’s parlor and I’ll hopefully be sharing a few cubes of sugar and a bottle of absinthe with O. Henry and Matisse, as well as anyone else from Ms. Stein’s et. al. who would like to join us.
It’s been a weird, long day and I’ve yet to shave. So I’d better get a move on…
Is it customary to gift The Steins a bottle of wine upon arrival? And if so, what kind? I’ve already chosen for them and their chef a splendid bottle of hot sauce to uncork on the eggs in the morning should I happen to crash & chance to dream the night away on the loveseat. I heard from a little bird that Picasso often wears his pajamas under his suit when he frequents.
Cheerio,
PSL