People Like Us by Robert Bly

There are more like us. All over the world
There are confused people, who can't remember
The name of their dog when they wake up, and
people
Who love God but can't remember where

He was when they went to sleep. It's
All right. The world cleanses itself this way.
A wrong number occurs to you in the middle
Of the night, you dial it, it rings just in time

To save the house. And the second-story man
Gets the wrong address, where the insomniac lives,
And he's lonely , and they talk, and the thief
Goes back to college. Even in graduate school,

You can wander into the wrong classroom,
And hear great poems lovingly spoken
By the wrong professor. And you find your soul
And greatness has a defender, and even in death
you're safe.
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On the note of love, I like this quote from poet Marie Howe...

"It takes so much courage to love, doesn’t it? Maybe it’s always been difficult, but in this age and in this culture‚ capitalism doesn’t want love, it wants us to buy and eat a culture that spends its money on defense systems—where so many of our communities are lonely and false, shattered and dangerous, and children’s hearts broken very early. Remember when the Surgeon General said the most pressing medical problem in American culture was addiction? Is addiction thwarted love giving up the hope of human connection?The fierce, real, clear energy of actual love, intentional defenselessness, the “unromantic daily love” of changing a grown man’s diapers, or moving someone’s car on street cleaning day so she can sleep‚ this daily love keeps many of us alive. To act in this world, without irony or condescension, as the younger sister does, seems to me an act of great courage. The long journey from the head to the heart."

Today we dropped Conor off at Camp Blackhawk, a camp for kids with epilepsy. They had only one nurse for forty kids, which isn't a good ratio, but the counselors seemed well prepared. Hopefully he'll have fun. It's really different without him home.


I made Alfredo sauce last night. It turned out well, but had a bit too much cheese.

I'm In Love by Charles Bukowski

she's young, she said,
but look at me,
I have pretty ankles,
and look at my wrists, I have pretty
wrists
o my god,
I thought it was all working,
and now it's her again,
every time she phones you go crazy,
you told me it was over
you told me it was finished,
listen, I've lived long enough to become a
good woman,
why do you need a bad woman?
you need to be tortured, don't you?
you think life is rotten if somebody treats you
rotten it all fits,
doesn't it?
tell me, is that it? do you want to be treated like a
piece of shit?
and my son, my son was going to meet you.
I told my son
and I dropped all my lovers.
I stood up in a cafe and screamed
I'M IN LOVE,
and now you've made a fool of me. . .
I'm sorry, I said, I'm really sorry.
hold me, she said, will you please hold me?
I've never been in one of these things before, I said,
these triangles. . .
she got up and lit a cigarette, she was trembling all
over.she paced up and down,wild and crazy.she had
a small body.her arms were thin,very thin and when
she screamed and started beating me I held her
wrists and then I got it through the eyes:hatred,
centuries deep and true.I was wrong and graceless and
sick.all the things I had learned had been wasted.
there was no creature living as foul as I
and all my poems were
false.