The day is yet young there where you are and I have just been to a screening of You Are Here about the stranded passengers who were fed and found shelter in Gander Newfoundland when American air space was closed in the wake of 9/11 and jumbo jets descended on the town like waves of locusts or bombers returning from sortie and run in stacked formation one atop another as they landed and parked nose to tail as if on some aircraft carrier preparing the way for an assault by land from the start the locals had her skald (for those who know nothing of witches and cauldrons to have her skald means to know your fate and have it in your hands) and sprang to action as seafaring people do used to missing bodies lost livelihoods and death and disasters at sea housing passengers from hither and yon in schools and churches and meeting halls and billeting them in their homes for 24 hours they made sandwiches fried fish and chicken threw toget

I can't remember how many times I went to the window to watch the street go by I have been surprised each time I saw someone I had seen before and others who were new I have been old when in a dream about opening the door of a wedding cake library when the guard was asleep I didn't know if I would see another book or another morning I have gone two weeks eating only bread and margarine and the odd spot of coffee here and there I have been down and out I have been hopeful when somehow the clouds broke and the weather changed and the sun came out to meet me half way as I greeted the day after all I have been ashamed when in spite of kindly gestures and caring words I startled or offended where I made to comfort and made to play I have been conciliatory when hands were rough and handshakes were extended when fists were clenched. I have been silent when night passed and a fever broke and I gathered the last apple that fel

The force of the storm twisted a tree off its roots so that it looked like the stem of a pumpkin carved in that pumpkin Forgot Me Lamp just like I forgot me coat and boots and hat.

I knew a lady who learned how to break dance in shoulder pads and high heels she wore a belt with a big buckle to show she was moving her hips and she sang without moving her lips

I wasn't going for a ten poem day but now it's come to that let me take pause to get this right it's Sunday and last night there was a frost and this morning I didn't know whether to scrape the leaves off with the snow in the end it didn't matter because it warmed up enough for the snow to melt and a wind took away the lasagna of leaves hard to tell what was cheese and what was sauce also there was the hint of coffee and fried eggs coming up from the basement there was probably bacon or it wouldn't have been a fry up but let's stick to the facts as seen or observed because they are different those one's trying hard to be a fact and the other is stated as if it were and I promised myself there was no place for Plato or the fictions in which we spend most of our lives so cards on the table most likely there was bacon and the heat was on and making it easier to stay in bed when the day was beckoning w

At the end we exchanged gifts tokens of a deeper commerce the kind once entered never ends in another life I could have called her sister in still another friend but as it was we had reached beyond make believe and in legal terms we had already had full disclosure not that I had hid anything or that she had stolen any secrets from somewhere I had forgotten but ours was the reckoning of eye contact I not knowing where to focus she not wearing mascara or hiding her eyes behind her bangs I wondered if she had had some stress because when she straightened the curl out of her hair an S-shaped patch and a few strands of white spoiled the contrast of black hair against white skin it never showed that it was hard for her to hear of things she couldn't change or to offer comforts that couldn't heal but chicken soup is chicken soup as any Jewish mother will tell you it couldn't help but it couldn't hurt and when I thanked