Your face popped up this week on a Facebook memory post. Seeing as
how this is my birthday week I took it as a gift. Your almost-Auden face
conjured a favorite line of yours—It is not so much that I got there from here,
which is everyone’s story: but the shape of the voyage. God what a line, Jim.
But you wrote that years after Yesenin, right? Well past your formless and
void? Makes sense as there was no way you could see the shape as you were
still too young then. You needed a few more creeks and rivers to reach the
face that greeted me this week, that visage from the fattening years, halcyon
days of Chatham and de la Valdene. Of Legends. And Linda. Always Linda.
I read a foolproof cure for writer’s block: start with the words I remember.
I remember my first girlfriend’s gift of a Saint Cristopher and her tears
when I up and moved away. I remember sitting on a Santa Fe balcony next
to a friend as dusk fell. We smoked, talked a little, but mostly sat quiet.
I remember the Chicago concert. They played 25 or 6 to 4 and a woman who
ran with the wolves danced on the lawn. I thought my heart might explode.
I remember my daughter’s joy-stained face on her wedding day. I remember
the just right gelato shop in Trastevere and the dulcet voices of my children.
I remember my brother’s phone call telling me our beautiful father’s heart
had exploded. My wife and I drove on, talked a little, but mostly rode quiet.
God, Jim, the shape of the voyage indeed. And then Meredith. Always Meredith.