Nest... at home

From message from J to Belle, 31 July 2008

Once I arrive at Kostenki--a modest sized village about 40 km southwest of Voronezh on the Don River, everything will be very peaceful. It's a typical village with orchards and farmhouses, and cattle and chickens wandering around in the middle of the road.I will be living in the room of a simple house in the village with a view of birch trees and some fruit trees. I will have a wooden desk where I will be working on mammal bones, mostly mammoth and horse, from the human occupation layers that we're excavating. But, I will spend many hours reading and writing there, as I always do. It's a perfect place to think and work--quite removed from the modern world. I think you would like it...

Belle to J, 31 July 2008

... Orchards and farmhouses. The landscape here...

Belle to J, 1 August 2008

I woke thinking about your beautiful description of where you will be staying, the wooden desk in the room with the view of birches where I picture you working and thinking and how you love it there. I love that image of you and woke to it, and thought that if I wore a locket - which figuratively I do, at my heart - that's what I'd place in it while you're gone...

Planisphere, John Ashbery, p. 37
...Nothing useful except key-chains,
lockets to be furnished, a ball to stuff with life...