Sunday

There's a room at the deYoung Museum with hardly anything in it. It's a gallery allright, but the artwork is secondary to the light that comes through the long windows and the people who come through to take in the view.

Is the time wasted or the time well-spent watching Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal play for the French Open championship? How can they hit the ball with so much force on clay, and in such damp heavy conditions? Djokovic is a hammer, and Nadal a saw.

I read my new poem out loud. It's about flying over Portland, Oregon and the feelings I have about the earth and its people from 30,000 ft. downwards. As presently structured the poem reminds me of an anecdote I read about William Faulkner in the big bio by Joseph Blotner.

A friend had visited Faulkner in his hotel room in mid-town Manhattan, pouring out his heart to the writer about an ill-fated love affair. Faulkner, seated on the window sill of his room on the 20th floor, seemed to be listening, so the man continued to talk, thinking Faulkner sympathetic to his plight. This disgorgement of grief went on for some time, until the man had said all he could say. There was a long silence and Faulkner, still seated on the window sill, turned his head away from the man and toward the window, saying, "don't them people down there look like bugs."

When I hear how my poem sounds, the beginning now sounds like the end. So I start over by trying to make a new beginning, and move the old beginning to the end. I have until noon Monday to get it right.