I love God

On Saturday an e-mail came from Nairobi, and every day since Saturday the remembrance that they are alright has whelmed me with gratefulness and I have to smile to know that even if all things in my world are not well
4 of them are at least, daniel and his wife and the babies.

Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Amadè Mozart, I am sorry

I was so busy playing your music on Sunday, I forgot completely that it was your birthday.

here is the last straw

A few days ago I read something where a man in Salfords, Surrey built a castle on his land and because the borough council had repeatedly turned down his application to build a home on his farm he hid it, a little dream castle complete with ramparts and turrets and conservatory and bridges and cannon, hid it behind walls of hundreds of hay bales and under a tarpaulin, for about seven years

Now the council wants it torn down because of no planning permissions

Perhaps this is what the cannon is for?

They lived there for four years his wife little son and he, and their son had just turned one and soon friendly birds came and hid there too, in the hay bank nesting and hatching - and he says, a very uninteresting view out our windows turned to a fascinating garden and all sorts of visitors

Bravo, man in Salfords

Ringed with the azure world

I haven't written here as much as I want to and I really mean as much as I should because this is my thinking grounds my broad log and friendly tree in the winter, I clear my throat grandly here and sometimes all that comes after are whispers again but that's ok. The photos were last Saturday, the Mississippi was curded white and frozen behind the dam but as far South as could be seen was cold clear blue and I took the little ones with me and the wind bit through us until our hands burned with cold but we saw them, great swooping majesties come to the water to live. They were watching and diving cleanly brushing the surface and we stayed with them until dark and as soon as my face turned the other way I missed it all and tomorrow I will go again. I would go to the River every day if I could. I would probably not leave either, watching from the floating dock the barge moving vaguely through, the last eagle skimming the moon from the water.

It is so cold now I nearly skate on what I spill watering the horses in the mornings. Snowflakes float around constantly never really landing. I don't go walking.

e-mails and such things that are owed will materialize soon, ish. Most of my time is somehow taken up with thinking.

Arriving at lock 24

They always brighten January.

For jessie

fly west.

Lady sings the blues

No dreams of snow and wolves no dreams of fear. Vividly in my sleep I saw all the dearest people in my life and was happy in dreaming, until I saw one walk away and a door shut and I saw my own eyes hurt. I asked why and I woke up fighting the waking, wanting to know.

Dusting of morning snow, the 12 year old and the I on our knees on the couch watching through the window and I said I've never seen snow that small before, it's like powdered sugar. He said Oh God's eating breakfast and I told him God doesn't eat powdered sugar for breakfast, and he said yeah. He eats sinners. I don't know why but I thought He would eat Raisin Bran, if He eats at all which I am told He doesn't.

Company comin' - dust the Spinet, make the tea, smooth our hair down, you then me. Snow melts while grownups talk. Nanny the loud children with sweet red haired Hattie beside, jimmy the bedroom door for the little boy that locks himself in places alone. Wish them well, thanks for coming by, your children are lovely, thank you, goodbye. Quiet now in faint diaper scented air, supper sounds, Regina Spektor singing take a look around no regrets no regrets, weekend coming, more cold on the way.

Off to class.

Tonight

If I have another dream like I had last night, I will never go out walking alone again.

Pieces

I think I need shambles.
I think I need to be surrounded by a disarray that will drive me to derangement, to despise myself for the confusion I've made and to love what it is becoming; because somehow without all of this I won't play I can't write and I don't dream, and no it doesn't make sense to me either, but I think that is the point. It just might be that without the clutter I am bored. very dangerously bored.
It simply will not do to have tidiness anymore, even if it was ever possible. Which it wasn't, as you could tell by looking in on my spinetarium. You would see there's music all over the place again, a metronome hanging askance, a faithful pencil, a holy mess. And I am happy, when I am fenced in it and working and playing, when I can't remember if I ate or drank and that doesn't matter, when it follows me to my pillow and my thoughts before sleeping are not sad but are beautifully troubled with d minor sonatas seventeen beethoven beethoven beethoven.

There are three of his sonatas on my piano now, the Pathetique the Moonlight and since last night the Tempest. I got the third movement in my hands and sat and played it all the way through and then again and then again. Before last night I hadn't played in days. This was the piece I heard Wilhelm Kempff play, when I had just heard of him and saw a recording of him for the first time. I remember I sat in unbreathing stillness and wondered at his haunted eyes, what they saw and if I had ever seen it. Still I don't know if I know, but it will be always just enough if there is only to believe music, and to know that some music this music fits in my hands and gives at least the smallest voice to a toneless ache. Why do you keep falling in love with them one after the other? Because I am.

Good news

today
will
be
one
minute
and
twenty
five
seconds
longer
than
yesterday.