Day 22

Finished Crime and Punishment last night.  Ending did not fully live up to promise of beginning (too much Svidrigaylov--why so much space dedicated to his suicide?)  Mostly worked all weekend, with breaks at night for dinner.  Have gotten sucked in to "America's Next Great Restaurant" which thankfully eliminated its most unlikable contestant last night.  Weather has finally turned; the sun is out and the Bink is full of restlessness.  His third birthday was yesterday, which means he's in technically in his twenties.  Maybe wisdom will come to him fairly soon.  Seems unlikely.

Among the books I ordered recently were Eco's On Beauty.  Should be interesting to see how that relates to some of the recent thoughts on craft/art.

Ok, got to get to it.  Here's a poem that's been in my head of late--the last line especially.



Eye and Tooth

My whole eye was sunset red,
the old cut cornea throbbed,
I saw things darkly,
as through an unwashed goldfish globe.

I lay all day on my bed.
I chain-smoked through the night,
learning to flinch
at the flash of the matchlight.

Outside, the summer rain,
a simmer of rot and renewal,
fell in pinpricks.
Even new life is fuel.

My eyes throb.
Nothing can dislodge
the house with my first tooth
noosed in a knot to the doorknob.

Nothing can dislodge
the triangular blotch
of rot on the red roof,
a cedar hedge, or the shade of a hedge.

No ease from the eye
of the sharp-shinned hawk in the birdbook there,
with reddish-brown buffalo hair
on its shanks, one asectic talon

clasping the abstract imperial sky.
It says:
an eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth.

No ease for the boy at the keyhole,
his telescope,
when the women's white bodies flashed
in the bathroom. Young, my eyes began to fail.

Nothing! No oil
for the eye, nothing to pour
on those waters or flames.
I am tired. Everyone's tired of my turmoil.

by Robert Lowell