Dearest love, the glorious weather continues unabated, just back from a big box store where I had stopped for a minute on my way home to see if there were intact marked-down flowers to be had, and when I entered a red-aproned clerk greeted me, and when I left a minute later, she had stepped outside the nursery cage to take in the sun, and exclaimed to me about the beautiful day - mountains resplendent beyond the sea of asphalt, air balmy and temperate, both of us in shirtsleeves, sun high in the sky as if it were June but the calendar says October - to which I replied, what a gift.

Oh sweetheart, where's your Porsche indeed, it is just such a day. I wish you were here. I would give anything for you to sneak up behind me right this minute and wrap your arms around me and feel me up and give me a great big kiss.

Sweetheart, just this very moment - I think of you too.

Tired at the moment, just checking in really. Back from a book reading in town - this has been an Arts weekend in the county, with an emphasis on the literary. Enjoyed myself, but feel reticent to comment more... except to say that sitting in the audience I'm so glad that I try my hand at typing, even if it's of an unorthodox variety... for the most part (present moment, frankly, possibly excluded) I try, I don't slap up just any old thing...

I did so much washing & ironing today, darling, that's why I'm fading way before the sun, which is just now sinking into that mellow gentle hour - where 35 years ago, on just such a moment, 1.0's mother would have busted open a gallon jug of Gallo Hearty Red and wax-sealed portwine-cheddar wheel served with Triscuits, and we - 1.0, his charming parents, his younger brother, and me - would have gathered on their open front porch - and regaled each other (me mostly listening & laughing, possibly offering a quip as an aside) with anecdotes of the day, political observations, wry remarks of all sorts...

It's just that sort of light. Ah but darling.... even I'm getting whiplash from that haphazard driveby down memory lane. But this sort of light, and the blessed balmy warmth, and still-long days, so summery even at 5:30 in October -- well, I'm sure that must resonate strongly with you...

Oh darling, what do I have to rub to make you appear? I've been half-coming the last couple of times, and the half is all I get, I can't get it back...

Today, just past noon I heard, on KZE, the signal prefatory drums of what I instantly recognized as Stella the Artist and - house to myself at that moment - I ran to crank the stereo. I haven't heard that song in months. I had been wearing it out, and maybe I'm not quite as excited by it as I once was - but still - it's glorious, over the top, and suited my mood, on this beautiful day.

I'm glad that you & I can dwell in this space between things
I'm so glad I met you - here

I should go downstairs & set up a bit of rice
to go with the sauteed fish for dinner tonight
topped with caponada I made the other day from CSA produce
eggplant, peppers, plum tomatoes, garlic
and Sahadi condiments, olives, capers, Spanish EVOO
which I'll replenish on my upcoming trip to B'klyn late next week
I hope our friends will pick up our Friday afternoon CSA haul
I think they would enjoy it
that, and encountering the remaining chickens around here
Jim - look at the chickens! -- D does a breathless impersonation of the wife
And Jim might enjoy taking awesome photos - they both have an eye

someone in the audience today asked of the two wonderful memoirists, how do you do it? how do you decide what to write? how do you experience what you've experienced & then figure out what to put down - when it's always "coming and going?," as he put it.

Indeed, so here is just this little scrap that I have managed for you this beautiful evening
light fading fast
I should be on the lookout this evening for a grand harvest moon
because in the wee hours last night when I got up to pee
a small distant moon set way back - at that point - in the western sky
high up, distant
lit up the dark aerie
its rays glowed from way far off
golden through bleached aerie shades
my animal body, naked
I glimpsed myself in a mirror as I passed
I have an animal body
a bit heavy in the middle
and not that Slavic movie star's slim long legs
but a solid animal credible singular presence nonetheless
as I move from room to room
filling a glass with tapwater
checking for your kisses
returning, in ghostly moonlight
to my northeastern chamber
where in the dark I settle down again
murmur endearments
and set forth again, who knows where,
til light breaks through
at dawn