20 September 2007. Gray skies, first small drops of rain. Natasha on round table this morning, arching her back and tossing her head. Whispery meows. All is response, water vapor, the rising seas. Where do we come from? Where are we going? Reading last night--poems of Larry Levis...each one new. Fresno, valley fields, dry grass, weeds alongside the road. Smell of winter, tule fog. Scene shifts to New York--I held her in my arms, Lexington, Third...whiteness of snow. Later: The Graves of Rome. A subtle preoccupation--recurring, always, shadow-like...
"...I'd almost forgotten that what
Most people leave behind them disappears.
Three days later, staying alone in a cheap
Hotel in Naples, I noticed a child's smeared
Fingerprint on a bannister. It
Had been indifferently preserved beneath
A patina of varnish applied, I guessed, after
The last war. It seemed I could almost hear
His shout, years later, on that street. But this
Is speculation, & no doubt the simplest fact
Could shame me..."
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