Poem for Sunday

To You
By Kenneth Koch

I love you as a sheriff searches for a walnut
That will solve a murder case unsolved for years
Because the murderer left it in the snow beside a window
Through which he saw her head, connecting with
Her shoulders by a neck, and laid a red
Roof in her heart. For this we live a thousand years;
For this we love, and we live because we love, we are not
Inside a bottle, thank goodness! I love you as a
Kid searches for a goat; I am crazier than shirttails
In the wind, when you're near, a wind that blows from
The big blue sea, so shiny so deep and so unlike us;
I think I am bicycling across an Africa of green and white fields
Always, to be near you, even in my heart
When I'm awake, which swims, and also I believe that you
Are trustworthy as the sidewalk which leads me to
The place where I again think of you, a new
Harmony of thoughts! I love you as the sunlight leads the prow
Of a ship which sails
From Hartford to Miami, and I love you
Best at dawn, when even before I am awake the sun
Receives me in the questions which you always pose.

--------

From Poet's Choice in Sunday's Washington Post Book World, in which Robert Pinsky complains, "Too many movies, poems, songs, TV shows deal in the familiar, offering the comfort of the predictable. Sometimes, an artist defies that kind of expectation, to express a feeling." Koch "puts ships in landlocked Hartford and a walnut detective in the opening simile of this early poem...not just to mock literary solemnity -- that is incidental -- but to offer 'You' the pleasure of something genuine, as well as genuinely amusing."

Guess what I did pretty much all day! I won't lie, I got a head start and read as much as I could stand yesterday. Slept late because my throat and head are still not right, had lunch with my kids, sent them off to my parents and sat down to take notes. Drank tea, ate German Chocolate Cake ice cream, kids came home and started reading their copy, kept taking notes till our late dinner, then typed and here I am trying to catch up on everyone else's notes!

Am feeling a bit down, but that's because several of the people I usually chat with about fannish things are out of town, doing their own thing, still reading or completely apathetic, not because of anything that happened in DH or the sense of anti-climax though I am sure that will come. This fandom has seen me through a number of friendships, writing partnerships and social groups online, and I'm expecting a slow diffusion like with Star Trek and LOTR. Will dig in my heels and hope the people who say they're sticking around really do, one way or another.


The night we saw As You Like It in Gaithersburg, this art by Michael Griffin Kane was on display.


It's for a City of Gaithersburg "Art in Public Places" program. I am trying to find out whether there are others besides this one at City Hall near the train station.


The decorations included quotations and actual star charts.


I like the stained glass window effect and the flower collage, too.