Dear love, glorious afternoon, sun blazing, blue skies, stiff cool breeze that made me reach for a fleece so that I could be more comfortable standing at the porch rail surveying the garden still in bloom. The Solomon's Seal in the woodland border is still burgeoning, but alas, dearest, the terrarium, the one I made last November, is no more. It did really well, I faithfully spritzed it every day, all through winter, but the plants didn't seem to like the warming temperatures of spring & early summer, or perhaps the warmth introduced disease - at any rate one by one the little plants died. I have a mind to redo it though, I still have the bowl, pebbles & seashells, and shavings of bark.

My dear, how are you? I hope it's a beautiful time of year where you are too, isn't it everywhere, say in the northern hemisphere? Dinner will be leftover lasagna, which I made yesterday - that was the something to show for the day before an anxiety attack took hold of me, leaving its mark on my last post, and disturbing my dreams overnight.

I had a chance to get out of the house today, besides my walk this morning, weights in tow. It's a little quieter around here today - most of the chickens are gone, rounded up by their ankles by neighbor yesterday, for their appointment with destiny. So that's what the sudden chorus of indignation was about - I had opened the window to wonder why they were caterwauling so - in case it was a dog or coyote in their midst. Another neighbor's dog got one of the henlaying chickens. That's the trouble with free-ranging. The Rottweiler didn't come into our yard - the chicken had wandered into his. Those chickens love life. Neighbor had to round up the last one from up her tree in darkness - where it had tried to make its great escape.

I had the car for a bit in the afternoon and so drove north to the little town library and caught up on free Times articles and slide shows, and on the Occupy Wall Street movement, which I'm impressed with, from what I read. I had been disturbed over the weekend to learn that 700 (!) people had been arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge, but that - in a way that accurately expressed their concerns, and helped to forestall potential violent confrontation - the protesters told the police - "we're fighting for your pensions." NYPD apparently had needed to use MTA buses to transport so many arrestees, and since then a transit union has stepped up to say that they don't wish their drivers to be used in that way. I don't know very much about this movement - but it reminds certainly of other protests going on all over the world, in various hotspots, not just in the Middle East, but in Europe - and clearly shows the devastating global effect that Wall Street has had on the middle-class, on future retirees, and on young people who face dwindling job prospects and of the ones who manage to graduate from college, crippling student loan debt.

Still - arresting 700 - what does this ostensible democracy expect the People to do if they need to revolt in peaceful assembly - obtain a permit? Look, obviously I don't know what I'm talking about in terms of legal ins-and-outs - but it does seem to me that yes, absolutely, you - crowds of you - have to assemble and break some rules and make noise -

If I had $20 to spare I would gladly contribute to their sleeping-bag drive, because the protests continue and the nights are getting colder in NYC.

I don't know where you stand on any of it - perhaps squarely in the middle between two spots - but I would love to be in your arms, resting together - ah! perhaps in a sleeping bag! - discussing such matters. Because frankly I'm picturing my aunt for one being very disdainful about even the aspirations of the protesters - she shocked me once with her decidedly anti-democratic views blithely expressed over lunch (along the lines of people aren't intelligent enough for democracy - I'm weakly paraphrasing here, but I think she was quoting Alexander Hamilton or somebody). But (troubles & tribulations in her wartime childhood, and more recently with my ailing uncle aside) she's largely had it very, very good - but it's less clear that future generations, including among her direct descendants, will have it nearly as secure. Most likely probably not. So yes, this form of protest is probably particularly distasteful to a certain generation - but where are the rest of us supposed to go?

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My dearest, I am almost desperate for your warm gentle arms at this moment, if only because otherwise I feel as though I'm picking needless fights in this post, being gratuitously provocative, and I don't mean to be at all. It's just that - well, these are the people I'm acquainted with, have memories of - the ones who (as much as I adore them) - I see things very differently from.

Wow, I just ended that sentence with a preposition. Hard times.

Let me end this post with a proposition. So many kisses, darling. Let's enjoy the last of the waning day, while we may

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images:
Cubiculum (bedroom) from the Villa of P. Fannius Synistor at Boscoreale; Roman, Republican Period, ca. 50-40 B.C.; fresco; room dimensions: 8 ft. 8 1/2 in. x 10 ft. 11 1/2 in. x 19 ft. 7 1/8 in., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), detail from Toward the Blue Peninsula (For Emily Dickinson), 1951-52, box construction, 10-5/8 x 14-15/16 x 3-15/16 in, Collection Daniel Varenne, Geneva, Switzerland

Fresco from inner cubiculum, Casa del Centenario, 2d Century B.C., Pompeii, Southern Italy