JAMES LAUGHLIN
The Life of Words
When he was young he read many books,
he devoured them. Later he tried to be a
writer. But he discovered that words
have a life of their own, often not
saying what he wanted them to say.
The Firs t Night
we spent together was like
school. Each was trying to
teach the other what we
liked or did not like. Love
was becoming a real thing.
A Moment of Vanity
A moment of happy vanity came to me in Urbino,
The seat of the one-eyed condottiere Duke "Feddy,"
who gathered so many artists and scholars at his
court. I was dickering for a book and the seller
told me, "Lei si difende bene in Italiano."
*
* "You difend yourself well in Italian ."
The Magic Flute
That summer in Munich we were Papageno and Papagena.
We walked along the Isar and in the Englische Garten
and went to a different opera almost every night. But
it was Mozart who set us dreaming and made us fall
in love. Beautiful days and now happy memories.
