Photo by VJP. Thank you!To Do or To Be is Done and I have decided that proximity to poets is dangerous, especially when you put at least seven of them (let alone 60) in a room. Every Thing that holds the fabric of daily life together falls away, one loose thread after another. Quotidian necessities and glad responsibilities -- the bed, the toilet, the child, the breakfast with coffee, the lover, the roof, the bulb, the oven -- cease to matter and sweet dreams of writing poetry, fiction, and single act plays attain a once-forgotten gravity. Illicit affairs and anguish become nearby possibilities and irrevocable departures no longer seem fearful. The steady plod of a life of calm, contentedness, and reason becomes untenable all over again.
That was the promise of Saturday. But I refused to let go. Instead, I drank whisky and I danced. These two coupled are easy, temporary escapes.
Sunday came with a hangover that was pleasurable for all it signified about the day before.
Monday was grounded in food and talk of food, and more comforting talk of writing, and concealed attempts to pick up the threads and wind them into neat little spools laid side by side and arranged according to color. I was glad for the presence of a writer-friend who, if she saw my struggle to return to routine, said nothing.
Today is Tuesday. I think of a poem on Mt. Pinatubo that was read by a woman I can only respect. The word dormant comes to mind and it sounds to me like a command, not an adjective, as a master tells its bitch, Stay. I have a dissertation to write and I realize I cannot be a poet because I am just an ass. (A pwet.)
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