 
                         20060419.00

     This morning the sun rose behind a dense barrier of fog
and clouds which became progressively lighter in colors as
night turned into day. Then it started to rain.  Lightly at
first, then heavily. Water started to drip from the frame of
the sliding window at the southwest corner of the porch.
That's no great harm. The porch was designed to be open,
screened only; my mother had the windows installed perhaps
forty years ago. They have served us well. Perhaps instead of
flirting on Nantucket, I should think about replacing them.
Laura tells me there's also a slow leak, 3 drops per minute
through the dormer of the second floor ceiling. It has a flat
roof with a very low pitch that was shingled by mistake, and
has been giving trouble since the house was built. As soon as
it's dry, I'll go up there and (try to) seal it with roofing
cement.

     There was no lightning, and the thunder seemed high
above the clouds, as if this time the gods were quarreling
with each other rather than expressing their anger at us.
But I took no chances but disconnected the computer rather
than take a chance that a high voltage spike might damage it.
I've found that writing by hand no longer works for me, since
I find it so tedious to transcribe the manuscript, and so
easy to babble into the keyboard, that my efforts result in
nothing more than a fragment of hand writing which is lost
either in the waste paper bin or in a folder from which it is
never retrieved.

     Instead I took the opportunity to start reading "Staying
Alive"; and since neither you nor Margaret had given me a
specific assignment (aside from "One Art"), I started from
the beginning, with the introduction. I was startled already
by the third sentence: "These are the kinds of poems which
speak to us with the same unnerving power now as when we
first came across them..."

                      * * * * *
Copyright 2006, Ernst Jochen Meyer
