228
PARTISAN REVIEW
bottom are the legs, over them the belly, then come the ears
(handles), and at the top the caning rings. "
so
perhaps i may not call until i get
a
cauldron. then will i
not be the ceremonial vessel into which you may dip?
One truth is the nature of contrasts.
One truth is she misses her husband; he loves his wife.
She is the eye abstracted to paper. He is the ear listening.
1/ 27
seen by the owl pheasant fresh rain water, your winter
present.
1/31
not nails, but talons on
my
fingertips. i
am
descended from
the owl.
i have been listening again-after more than
a
year-to
the valiha. et puis je suis allfJ
au Voyage Noir.
merci
ling
1/ 28
dear R-hello
dear R-what a lovely lunch we had-you tasted so
exquisite to
me
2/ 2 hello, i have fallen into
a
pad on an acre and
a
half of
slightly inclining hill just above the Russian River.
So,
i have
decided to take
a
holiday trip to the forest by the river and not
return to Berkeley until June or September . . .
i do not know what I may say-so aliI want to say is that i
have missed you
a
thousand thousand times
shanti shanti shanti
Were the portents obvious? Could I have foreseen what was to
be blown to bits in a soapbox alley? Worse, did I even in some way
contribute to it? Although I was not Patricia Hearst I came, I think,
close to sharing her fate. My family connections with Wall Street and
Supermarketville had me set up for that. For what it's worth one can
imagine what the $2 million food giveaway might have come to with
a few more dollars in the till and the world' s largest grocery chain
doling it out instead of a bunch of hoodlums and philanthropists.
All this may be what comes of reading too many newspapers
at too great a distance . And I'm not certain what,
if
taken , I would
