Hello darling. Beautiful late afternoon, missing you very much, wondering where you are, guessing that you're away catching up on field work. Kansas doesn't have broadband? Quite possibly not, though Quiver did, or was it Quammen? Quinter - that's it, way back late last March or early April when after a months-long absence (as far as I could tell, and it seemed to drive me mad, I was reading all sorts of meanings into song titles and page hits from odd places) suddenly you reappeared, and I'm so glad you did. One day we'll get together and you'll explain it all to me - won't you?

So I checked out Poets House yesterday. I had a half-hour to kill before it opened at 11, which was fantastic because it's located right on the river in NY Harbor - spectacular location. I strolled along the promenade, marveling at the urban design and landscaping, such as beautiful play areas packed with little children and their parents and/or hired caregivers, an abundant assortment of play areas, swings, pool tables, open grass fields, playground sets, fanciful structures - really, it was dreamlike how lovely and well used by absolutely delighted children it was. I strolled to the sheltered harbor cove by the World Financial Center and became intrigued by what appeared to be paparazzi photographing a very expensive yacht flying a British flag. A blonde in sunglasses was hanging out on the back of the moored craft, talking on her cell. Then she went inside and shut the black glass sliding doors. I sat on a bench at a distance casually observing the scene and jotting unrelated thoughts in my notebook. A few minutes later the doors slid open and a tall skinny guy got out and walked onto the wood dock alongside the boat and lit a cigarette. A very thin longlegged brunette joined him, and they smoked cigarettes and desultorily groomed or petted each other. The paparazzi had gotten bored and left - maybe the initial blonde was the payload. Or maybe they weren't paparazzi, just determined Japanese tourists. I was starting to feel CIA myself, observing this boat as in a spy thriller. At five to eleven I walked back along the beautiful river marveling at all the recreational "uses" and returned to Poets House.

I don't have that much to say about it really. It's a beautiful space and a nice idea, and I'm sure its heart really is in the programming. It's a Clean Well Lighted Space for poetry, and houses a collection of some 50,000 poetry-related volumes. I detected a note of messianic zeal about the enterprise, but I was there truly just to take a peek. I strolled up and down the bookcases, not having any poetic agenda in mind. And then I thought - of course, Dickinson. They had a very small collection of books related to Dickinson, and if I have a quibble it's a quibble that I have for many a library, including my little town library upstate.

The temptation to file books in strict alphabetical order is very strong, as is the desire to fill bookcases from top to bottom. But truly - the Dickinson books were located on the very bottom-most shelf! E.D. herself would have been amused, I think, and quipped how her books are convenient - for a Mouse. It is asking a lot for a creaky-jointed wise woman to have to bend down on her knees, crouch down, don readers, and tilt her head sideways to read the titles! I felt quite the middle-aged Alice folding myself into the space - did I mention that it was jammed at a corner too, by the sheer shelving coincidence? One might hope that many more poets and essayists from A to De will soon publish and send their books along so that Dickinson might have to be shelf-moved to the next case - blessedly at the top!

(Now I'm reminded of those shelf-reading and wholesale book-shifting projects under Jim Brown's direction at the library - remember those, darling? I think you may have supervised me on or two of those - I blush to think of it now. And the project of inserting magnetic strips into each volume, the very early days (mid-70s) of electronic library book theft protection? Oh darling. That was one hot library, with you in it.)

I did peruse a couple of volumes of critical essays on Dickinson, choosing a seat at a table by the window. It was like the scene from Men in Black when Will Smith pulls out a chair and it makes this huge, interminable scraping sound along the floor and everyone looks up. I sat down and made myself as small as possible again and skimmed a couple of essays. Now and then someone would walk by me, and one by one other tables and seating areas began to be occupied. Anytime someone walked past I'd look up over my readers and wonder - oh, is that a poet? One woman looked Fiercely Poetic, long wild hair, smear of lipstick, grim determination. Another guy, an elderly Whitmanesque gentleman, definitely looked like a Poet. Then there were a couple of really cute guys, way younger than me, poets like Javier Bardem or a young Antonio Banderas is a Poet. I wouldn't be surprised if anyone wondered about me - is she a poet? - here we all were, self-selected bugs on a petri dish - Poets!

I don't mean to be hard on the place. I think it would be a really cool place to hang out on a cold, rainy day, looking out from a safe, warm space onto the wild gray river. I wonder if many of the little children delighting in outdoor play in the beautiful park across from Poets House, will migrate indoors for winter, to try their hands at composing their own verse...

Very many kisses, my beautiful darling. Letting this fly. Love you.