In summer
we work from the porch candles
every day not just Friday
time not what we were told
hours and minutes not what life is
Friday although a good word
as good as Wednesday or Sunday
Friday another beginning another ending
and now and now
Plan B (Real Meditations)
Still summer. Don’t worry that summer
will be over. Summer is never over.
Memory is as real as summer. My father
bought a beach house with his Cornell roommate
Solly Stein inventor of the Puritron. Big
duplex on top of a sea wall on the Jewish beach
in Woodmont Connecticut next door to the Italian beach
though we rarely crossed over to the Italian side.
Those summers much longer than summers are now
slow days swimming lying on the rocky beach
imagining other summers when I
was older when I had a real life (I didn’t know those summers
were real life then) when I had a lover maybe even
a child or two when I had a good job and had seen
Africa Egypt Italy Israel when I could read
as much as possible even write my own sentences.
Abby and I would draw our lives on those rocks and
when the tide changed the rocks would be washed
clean and the next day we would draw our lives again.
Going to the AZORES (3,4,5,6)
3
Five hour flight to San Miguel
biggest island of 9. We’ll stay there
this time. Watched Big Little Farm
Amy Sedaris and Doctor Ruth. They all
had their plusses. Especially Doctor Ruth
and Amy Sedaris. I wondered what they’d
think of each other.
4
We drive south to Vila Franco do Campo
for breakfast. 8 in the morning Azores time.
Small medieval town right on the water. 4,000
people. God plays a big role, as do pineapples. We
eat on a rooftop overlooking the sea. This
could not be more beautiful. Azorean men
drink coffee outside. Laughing and smoking
cigarettes. They look happy to be right here.
5
We drive through miles of astounding hydrangeas. Really.
And then arrive in Furnas, where we stay.
Furnas is home to three volcanoes,
geysers, hot springs, fumaroles.
A fumarole (I didn’t know the word so looked it up)
comes from fumus in Latin,
meaning smoke. Smoke comes out of the earth.
Furnas stews, even eggs, are cooked underground.
Our hotel has four thermal pools. You just sit
in them and feel better. More or less instantly.
6
The hotel also makes gin and tonics. Anthony Bourdain
made fun of Azores gin and tonics on a show he did
ten years ago and although i love Anthony Bourdain
I don’t agree with him here. They use cucumber
and star anise and juniper berries. We drank
many good gin and tonics. ( I will try to make them too.)
7
The man at the desk is named NuNu. He
tells us what we might want to do: milk goats, visit gardens,
lakes, mountain paths. NuNu was born in Mozambique.
“Or you can stay right here and talk to me,” says NuNu.
“It’s your vacation.”
Home from The Azores (Part One)
Funny what people say when they come back from vacation. Usually a version of
It Was Great.
Or Great But.
I’ve always been obsessed
with What We See and What We Say, and How.
1)
A travel story starts before the plane. In the ride to the airport, the driver is often a precursor. A Harbinger.
Fred from Jamaica picks us up. Old fashioned good natured driver (29 years he’s been driving. Mostly to the airport and back.) He met his wife in Kingston. She owned a restaurant and his brother took him there to eat. That was that, said Fred.
Fred likes to eat and so does she. He especially enjoys hamburger deluxe at an old fashioned diner on Jericho Turnpike. He gets both fries and onion rings.
Where can we eat good Jamaican food we asked Fred.
The Door. It’s on Baisley Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens. No contest said Fred.
Would you and your wife like to join us when we come back?
Maybe said Fred. Give us a call.
2)
Try not to talk to everyone at the airport said Peter.
We are on vacation. I said OK and it wasn’t my fault and he agreed
when Melba from Trinidad and East Pasadena came over to say
she was going back to East Pasadena (she didn’t like New York
very much too many people) but she wanted to tell me that I
looked very much like her deceased Aunt May, who was half
Jewish. Same face said Melba. Was she happy? I asked.
She had three kids said Melba. Does that mean happy?
We Are Going to the Azores Today
Dear Reader Occasional or Always of These and Other People’s Poems,
We are going to the Azores today. I mispronounce these Portuguese
islands 1,000 miles from Lisbon in the middle of somewhere Ah Zoar Es
might be right we are going because they are beautiful because they have
pineapples and tiny clams and volcanic springs and whales and wine because
there is a cheap direct flight from New York from Boston
because Brian and Maureen loved it went back again because in the summer
we often take a trip (usually in the car) and I will leave my laptop home
and not post poems while we’re away (although I will write them) because
I will try to take a vacation from this crazy country this crazy world except
for the Ah Zoar Es except for whales and wine and books of other people’s poems.
In Last Night’s Dream
I wrote a goodbye letter
to someone I don’t know
man named Tomasso I have never known
a man named Tomasso I wrote the letter
by hand on a piece of manilla colored Crane’s stationery:
Dear Tomasso I am, in the words of
Elvis Presley returning you to your sender.
I hope you know who Elvis is but
even if you don’t you’ll get the idea
that You Should Go. Elvis sings
Return to Sender Address Unknown
and that’s what I am writing you.
I don’t have to explain, so I won’t.
Dear Tomasso Whoever You Are
Whoever You Were It’s Time
to Say Goodbye
(and then, I was very
careful choosing my stamp. Just for
contrast, I picked a new stamp
Marvin Gaye and thought to myself
Tomasso will never notice the link
between Marvin and Elvis and that
won’t matter any more.)