Hello darling, the sun is setting behind the hills, the aerie for a moment dramatically lit, in a way that reminds me of when you're in a jet plane climbing and rising, the cabin, banked, flooded with light that streams in from one side, the windows facing west...

I noticed today that enough leaves have dropped from strategic trees near our house that the mountains are visible again, a glimpse of them from the solarium, and from up here in the aerie. At this moment, sun dropped behind the hills, there's an ink-purple curve of ridge that seems nearby - just behind a stand of trees in our yard - but in fact is miles away, way on the other side of the river. The mountains are that immediate, the suggestion of them - in a way that I find very beautiful and moving - not a huge dramatically unobstructed view - but a humped apparition behind the trees. I've mentioned before that I feel very fortunate to have any sense of mountains - of place - from here - such views are quite rare, depending on angle, elevation, vegetation. But our house is situated just right, built in 1880, a few years (as I reflected this morning) before E.D. died, in 1886. So she was alive, about the age I am now, as this house, unbeknownst to her, was going up.

I've gotten up again to look out the window. I wish I were a painter, just now!  Colorless light, leafless trees black against blank sky, golden washes of remaining leaves, green foregrounds of lawns - and looming at the back of the immediate earthy tableau - the main subject perhaps - a distinct hazed purple mass...

My mother could draw & paint, my sister too. I don't have that talent. At the moment I wish I were an ancient Japanese printmaker or watercolorist. The aesthetic is Japanese in that way to me, at any rate.

My dearest Edward, you're more Edward to me perhaps than Albert, no you're all of the above & Pablo too, and others... but I wish you could be here enjoying the garden and the falling leaves and newly revealed distant vistas, while still zinnias & salvias chug along in the garden. The chickens are gone for the moment, penned in by neighbor while she's in the city, in the hopes of someone hired to work on her roof who's also a butcher capturing a one-extra errant rooster...

I hope the Occupy Wall Street people do well. We need them. Thank you. They are the resistance against the corporatist coup d'état. I saw a glimmer of that at the President's inauguration, a few years ago, that January day, when D & I, jubilant that the W years were over, stayed home, cranked the pellet stove, and even busted open a bottle of wine at one (perhaps not the thing to do, given the message of 'getting the Nation back to work.') But that's what we did, no harm done, it was our little party, in winter afternoon solarium sun. Speeches were given, poems read, successors sworn in, predecessors witnessing, presiding, and then, on the live coverage, the festivities moved to the inaugural luncheon set to happen, invited corps de ballet, assembling in, mingling, taking their seats at round banquet tables... as the camera observed from above... and amid all this momentous, magical, majestic swirl, touting the amazing wonderment of a new President - no, really New! breath of fresh air New! - sworn in, there I found myself watching, as he marched away, back to the hall, a hunched over Timothy Geithner, who I find kind of cute in a prep-school way, but discomfitingly nervous and facially inscrutable in others, taking a cell phone call from.....

who, exactly? It was clear to me at that moment - that moment that all cell phones truly should have been shut off - or rather, who would be so brazen as to call - and whose call would have to be taken? - because the main event, before our eyes, was going on was right there & then, the New President's inauguration & all the celebration -

no - Geithner had, rather overtly, betrayed by his hunched, twisting body English, turned his back to the room and clasped the phone to his ear in which obviously he was hearing - familiar voices, not even whispered, shouted, ordering, in the mood for innuendo, guffawing

***
and that's it darling, a whole lot has played out
on the global stage since
and will continue to play out

I still wonder what will happen
I wonder what the rhetoric is these days in your circle
how it accommodates itself

and so darling
my dearest love, my Edward
let's figuratively take sleeping bags to the garden
wrap our arms around each other under the stars
and occupy... ourselves with dreams
of what you might cultivate in the garden
the neglected, clay-earthed, overgrown garden
blooming on its own, in late October, with Queen Anne's lace
while I, Cunegonde, figure out what I should do with
huge bowls of pears - besides frangipane -
and apples