240
PARTISAN REVIEW
her?no.
Berkeley's good for one time sensual experiences–
that's what
my
love life consisted of for most of the time i was
with Gilbert. . . .
oh, i
am
actually very very happy to have heard from you &
hope you
come
to have dinner before you leave Berkeley?
or
you should phone me?
or
make
a
deal to write sometimes?
or
drop by the orange juice stand at college
&
bancroft any
weekday afternoon?
shanti
love
Sometimes do you think it is we virgos who are so so quiet
when goddam i
am
surprised to hear from you. there 's this
philosophy new to me, which keeps coming around
&
says
ITS UNSPEAKABLE
(tho i cannot deny that i do hope to see you)
i'm glad you've planned all these travels
Included on silvery flower-leaf paper was a poem:
Far greater the poet's obligation
To Crime
Than merely to rhyme .
And on another page a poem with that same, all too vast ocean
Image:
and sometimes i am the ocean
upon which floats
many troubled rocks
The rocks were all of us, and her own diversive selves.
Needless to say, my new companion and I did not turn up for a
meal over the hot plate. Children or no children I was determined
to get out of Berkeley and Nixon-elected America, and I couldn't
see endangering years of efforts. So in early March I went to Kat–
mandu, and then with a group led by a Berkeley doctor plunged off
on a very moving and painful (bad knee) walk over
18,800
ft . Tesi
Lapcha to the Sherpa communities. I would like to have stayed, but
my efforts to eat back in Katmandu only brought me to the borderline
of dysentery. So I came to France as a place where I could most likely
