Speaking To You (From Rock Bottom)

Speaking to you
this hour
these days when
I have lost the feather of poetry
and the rains
of separation surround us tock
tock like Go tablets

Everyone has learned
to move carefully

'Dancing' 'laughing' 'bad taste'
is a memory
a tableau behind trees of law

In the midst of love for you
my wife's suffering
anger in every direction
and the children wise
as tough shrubs
but they are not tough--so I fear
how anything can grow from this
all the wise blood
poured from little cuts
down into the sink

this hour it is not
your body I want
but your quiet company

Michael Ondaatje

Love among the llamas

The love of my life and I finally figure it all out together. And then we go to Ecuador. We stayed at Hacienda Cuzin in Otovalo, which is the perfect place to kiss and make up.

Wintery Prague

Prague is beautiful but cold, and I walk on gloomy streets haunted by ghosts of my bad decisions.

then the voice in my head said

WHETHER YOU LOVE WHAT YOU LOVE

OR LIVE IN DIVIDED CEASELESS

REVOLT AGAINST IT

WHAT YOU LOVE IS YOUR FATE

— from "Guilty of Dust" by Frank Bidart

Halloween with Jacques

My dear friend Jacques and my doggie Henry, just before many bottles of champagne at French Tuesdays Halloween Party. Henry really hated Jacques' "costume."

Hauntings...

At a photo workshop in Rockport, Maine. I was scared of the crickety old house where I was staying, and via text message J promised me that he'd protect me from the ghosts.