[JANUARY 2026.]
N. is out of the hospital and strangely already herself, texting in paragraphs. She’s happy.
R. opens my door without knocking, sits on the tatami with an expectant air and has no idea what she’s expecting. She wants the world to be more than it is.
Tao Te Ching: “nothing is lacking.” If you really meant that it would leave nothing standing.
Supposing I built a Moorish garden out back, what would come bathe.
A whisper on the walk home: you don’t have to keep trying to do the impossible. Meaning what, though?
The sun came back and the shadows got darker. Void splayed sideways. Tree-shaped by courtesy. Put on your dark glasses, there’s no bottom to it.
One thing you don’t get in Zen is the figure of God as absent lover. For me that might be a safety feature.
Dirt, cold gust, hawk. The elements.
A few months ago I hiked up to this stand of eucalyptus and it frightened me. I thought there was something pagan in the glade. Today it’s still strange, the giant stems split almost down to the root, but the guardrails seem to be back in place. I haven’t had a drink in twelve days and the effect so far is that I sometimes forget why one does anything.
Waiting for the text that they’ve sewn N. into her new shape at the hospital. I saw her dozen packets of post-op medication and exclaimed, God, I’m never going to get bottom surgery, and C. said, as long as you’re prepared for your mind to change.
I brought Miguel Hernández up the hill.
Yo no quiero más luz que tu sombra dorada
donde brotan anillos de una hierba sombría.
En mi sangre, fielmente por tu cuerpo abrasada,
para siempre es de noche: para siempre es de día.
I don’t have a peninsular accent in my head and read abrasada as abrazada without thinking. No, it’s more so.
Hello again. I’ve been doing a stint at the Oakland Review of Books (uh huh, we made one), so my bit for the day is over here. Back here tomorrow? Perhaps?
(Previously I went to the opera, saw a gay movie and attended the spicy release party. In the future I hope to read a book.)
