Work and Days: Up north: vol 2 - part 2 1979 April-May

up north 2 part 2 - 1979 april-may work & days: a lifetime journal project

[alternative edited version]

6 april 1979

frank waters

sleeping through night beaverlodge fresh air and the old man's thoughtful accent, the car, in hythe the woman's different tone do I look like them now bernice 'see how thin I used to be' photos - the man at the side of an oat field, california poppies in front of him mrs swanson among her cushions, pink dress and brooch, under the coffee table her bare feet

walking on dark road
soft air
decomposing snow
almost not hearing them say I have to leave this house the swans, I wanted to go there from valhalla
house in order I'm dead want to sleep
slept and it got bright sun went down north of west the animals that ran away from the house and sat looking a pair in the fields
athapaskan things

7

car drove out at the end of the day, had been doing and trying since yesterday distance of yellow to N driving rutted greasy black he's just coming out, I say hello as if it isn't a person, see width and struggle to walk she at the table writing holding her arm across herself, nervous

it's a question gives her maria, we are all animated by the woman's stories when he went to the concentration camp he said wait three years even if you don't hear from me at the dance, he struck tinder, he was so handsome she said I'll wait forever walking through the village they passed the house of the local strange person, hair to his shoulders, unkept house she said who's that, he kept walking but who is it, confronting him it's uncle abram we laughed again

she was swept into germany and all the rest were swept back but she, with a small girl and pregnant, stayed and went to canada waited for him refused offers, worked, learned to manage, a long time later learned he was married with four children mary: 'she's still carrying a torch for him so high' ek sei so's et es

album full of strangers they found and loved

he stayed away but liked to say differential, 'i'll show you'

mary sieiburt and her undelivered awful offering of the show biz tv christian, who I have to now deal with because I told her shocked, I must say I hate terry winter and her hurt

8

someone at night said yoga no longer gives her -
waking am already moral sorting

restless,
along lakeshore to the old house, standing opendoored but dry, fine front room, fine trees, yellow floor
thinking of the tarot [house in the background of the 10c card]

[I go to ask Tone Tofteland whether I can rent the swan house]

tone's fine ways, loving her plants red
'I think I know what it is'
'it would be good for the house' 'yes,' moving the kettle, 'it would be good for the house'
his horses, her births, olivia said you don't have to worry about anything when you have them so close together
instant coffee payment
looking at her lined face, lines across lines
her quiet voice in the house without lights, he had no memory
I was careful because she could tell
got out the weaving at the last moment 'it's very fine' 'yes it is fine' 'and it's well made' 'yes it's well made'
I was raving as in the other houses

9

waking: the light
he came in his truck, I heard and jumped, talked as if not there, but under the hood helped well voice runs out nordhagen's watching they love charlie and why sent a fish john [tofteland] said yes I don't mind
house restless knot in forehead ripples
sense of journeying out and maybe learning a surprise

hot in front on a blanket feeling the other house and the space downhill

trying to write exactly poppies to going to the other house it was less shining the fields feeling their lie quietly differently

fighting sometimes a moralizing mind, the one making pieties from details when did I make it is it his whose

wanting to make signs and leadings for the house
to have her but holding possibility of without the open windows and animal trails through them swallow nest in upstairs
front blue constellation bedroom sunset bedroom
centre nave for morning

night face burned from supper early j journal

[letter]

The house at swan's lake, no rent, from the beginning of May when the road dries. I'll go silent for a while, say what you intend or if you need something.
The tea came though I don't have it yet.
It came just right. I struggled through snow to it yesterday, doors were open but it was dry and seemed happy. At sundown I went shyly to visit the people who own it. She knew what I wanted before I said. She loves the house, wants it inhabited.

-

Your reputation with Vancouver friends (D and she says others) is that you're spoiled arrogant and leave other people picking up after you. Sandy used to tell you you were socially brutal, inconsiderate. Wealth and privilege. Did what you like. Your protest makes me feel like I must give you a good fight.

10

luke said 'I love you very much' I was in a building, took the elevator wanting to go to another building, maybe to luke, but the bottom button lit up someone else in the elevator had pushed CANCER didn't realize was passing through a corridor with rows of skulls some of them had one eye socket larger than the other, I thought left but actually right, then there were parts of skeletons mounted with the descriptions

woke and wasn't chilled until I remembered it

(some image of satan was it dream or where horse skull)

hythe in dead light dream of dead fillies

('you can almost get to it but not quite - like glass' val power)

fright when thinking of dissembling

sharing food with ellis in the bar henry and daughter

how to work - sea meadow trace it - reading the rest of j journal mostly done unsensing
slow feeling j ahead as test and looking forward to depth - said sea meadow brilliance again boiling play there's little power think of the paralysis with them and my dignity mass hurled against the stove she was on the other side of massive
weary life in the plant book eyes lumping all day
going to sleep first diaphragm then chest in pain clenched roy
last night I thought I should find the story of val

11

with indian people at night went out to two young girls we were in a huddle they started to sing
I knew I could be the third part, the high rising of singing we thought we could go to sleep together
mary davis was there smiling
on road to visit east place met a herd I took my upright (coffin) toilet to the fenceline and went under the herd came there too I looked up to see a horned animal running at me stop just short turn back
a woman and men (heidebrecht) tell me he's a bad one
but I stopped him probably by not realizing he was dangerous, then backed to the fence waking thought maybe the bull is fright
plants but without the tenderness of yesterday anger with talk with them dislocal anxious to mail coffee heart shake package telegram letter without letter again the empty blue space unfolding hurt angry
val's telegram worded as you would have is she the first for the unmade retreat? fantasy don't bend me but yesterday tried to write like that again

plant book
mail
letters roy luke val
foucault
cooking
writing

[EJH Corner 1964 The life of plants Littlehampton]

and the letter fr j that said the right thing
today her telegram but disappointed as if unfelt angry with it
I wanted her to talk it's a brush-off

12 thursday

bright from under a softball team very young children, the international meet japanese and chinese the chinese are strathcona children best in the world I'm moved, there's a round-hexagonal construction I look through a low door, see two children in a big room, another door goes down to another level (luke the strathcona child) earlier a wedding? I meet greg at lunch

seaweeds of one house and of two houses
gender for/with you
hythe insurance plates windshield wiper gas cap
car's blithe
4 letters at home shock I'm hopeless then fight in detail then seem to have got it essential
and wind cold coming up and can't see ahead and
balance

[letter]

Something about how you're suddenly 7 pages angry makes me wonder. Is it about the HKU job and is the deadline past and are you terrorized not knowing what to do? The complaints are out of date but what they say is you're bound. What was in 3 and 5.6. You want to try the job. You don't want to give me up. You want to feel sexy young man open space vitality. Push. You don't know where you live. Your thesis isn't much further. Is this addressed to you?

The days when your chest hurt (the next page not here yet), you said that after "planning without each other in sight." What I said about Cariboo was I'll decide about half my time (and you there if you want) and I'm offering half to us with you where you like if it's possible. Was it that you wanted full time? It isn't an irresponsible dream, it's a direction, not refined, just a begun something. Do you want me to hold out longer in open time with you? Until we find a mission together? What hit you, it wasn't the birthday, it was something else. You thought I was planning without you. What's your feel, what was your first feel, about the swan house. Do you have money, can you work on thesis there? No electricity, long days and very bright lamp light but it hisses. Far off the road, quiet. But primitive like you know. Maybe Luke and some of the time maybe his cousin. Might be covery and fine or might rain. Fresh lettuce cheap steak but awkward kitchen. I will have painted and put in windows and screens, and fixed mosquitoes at night. Whether the mythos will balance discomfort for you.

My car will continue to irritate you.

Or do you want to take the U job? Don't know what you're holding out for. If you want it and me I don't know, I can't promise I'd come in fall but if we stay connected I will and in the meantime you could see who you like better but I'm not certain we could survive that, we might. Do you want the jmob? What is going on with it. Prssure. I'd fight for you, I mean I'd fight to know you, but it's whether -. When you were here last you said for you it was over. There's that and you said it well and we backed off it and I don't kinow what it was, about your limits or mine, but dear you it feels like at the moment you have to -

I feel like you want to try freedom and you want to try thicker marrying about equally. I'm saying this full of love as if I found you in it. Did I at all.

-

Last in Vancouver, night before I left, I had TCR to see slides. Evening of unbearable heaviness, I just wanted them gone. T was revenging, R pleasant and C in her cowardly way stood by comforting with nearly imperceptible gestures. Watch for the inner paralysis, a sort of blank: maybe you know what to do with it. Keep a straight record of factual what happened then and you'll be alright.

You set me up for this, was it to worry me or warn.

I'm in some way prepared by a hardening too. Take care don't hurt yourself to spite me.

You evaded my real sadness in that letter. Do you know you dodged charmingly into mythology.

Soft materials don't "import their own erasure," they erode. But yes the run of the current in the place prepared by the current. It's that you like the word erasure for its interesting s?

The form is lovely.

If you're thinking to try Trudy her warp is unfinished revenge on her mother and I think some racial paranoia. Manipulation is the key word. You may find things in her to mirror you but she's no virgin, she's been through something in woman. And she's not asexual, she refuses, to control her lovers, but she knows how. I've been cautious telling you anything about her, not wanting to pander.

Last night a row of 4 couples jiving, C and someone at the second place, R and T in the fore, a beautiful dance, they moved symmetrically, left to right, heads dropped back, chests arched. Were in skirts and sweaters.

In my dreams I've walsed with T and flown with C, and that's accurate. In both, I was leading. The flying was better than the walsing but T was more there than C.

I've told no one about swans' house. Be discrete, don't make a story of it. Please.

13

dream - a baby being born fast, headfirst, I felt it to see whether it was a boy, not liking it much
snow light - thought I could do a good friday piece
couldn't in the botany followed an image out to dump afternoon let her anger pierce me

in the noh
trying to sort her - to the t and c writing and, what, not a natural sight, breaking into ideas but pressing and testing the mythology is now ugly but forlorn world without life in it only moment waiting to see if the crummy person will be right sometimes, oh please not just the uglies the burden then you'll have a burden val said or lonely suspended forever and not allowed luke or the child or joy of making either only the crooked love of that one and the others
sobbed and cried

14

restless
gradually became day to clean house unblind the windows wash floor hair shirt still restless don't want to read what mary and him scared at evening
drive mindfully bumps grind in the motor she's at the kitchen table listening to the messiah glad looking at the local history book has things to give
he comes in and it sends her obedient to have her bath greet in the old way by not speaking double
tea and I set his but he chooses the other table she knows how to the slides, colors and plants slimy
desert plants and views the little plant 'this dear little thing' he wants to talk a little technical feeling his alienation and her eagerness to talk last week substitute teaching the bad class thoughts wanting to pour, alarm could imagine her too hungry to know what's going on, and from a little girl

a medium: think of the real dilation, this is thinned and familiar willow branches for good health
packing food for me she was humming
her support and their ears making me happy and quite young the blue blanket from greg's bed reappearing!

going home at the door we see yolk red moon

15

coming home from dolemo's in stiff car windshield laced over peering thinking of you sadly are we deep into a wrong thing you why not simple hearted what struggles of ambition if it were the only thing we did cleared the table thought of dope reading shaman felt it daydream special person the fright with vision and here the ugly hungry lovely untouchables, which, it's discussion most of the idea I say I'm less a ghost
back in the familiarity of stupidity writing
tried the voice resisting paul and it found her insanity and mine next to it
exp: mama and head tossing chant
for the first time got the stamping

sick and lying down toothache hunger?
same witness
what this can be for

bernice stops 10 minutes with you
less civilized without helmer

'who's going to look after you when you're an old one?'
'you I hope allie'
'what did you say? I didn't hear that' laughing

16

the house chipping windows
on the way home the dead head, stink, body contracted shaman pictures of me
shaman book

early bed dark radio haven of rest
shipmates kind voice
rick nelson's
I found the frauenstube and could walk into the cloakroom the evening service
mushroom headache memory music I remembered, american voices at night, they sound different now toothache deeper memory

writing and tape efforts from shaman notes
made watchful, could notice the different ways of working memory holding still
gathering tape's weak voice writing always stronger except a bonding fantasy

repair information wood chisel the man in the other bed used to be the woman's ward at the end the sunporch probably the right one size of the ward

hills all v high today driving through slush on the hill a truck crawling and stalled but swiftly pulled left and around college africa pictures

long road home, unique colors orange grass road in white

17

not remembering dreams

snow town valhalla coming to mary's I just see his truck leaving discomfort and calling it closer 'he wants all your heart' at the table talking about god so we can bring the disliking words talking to our selves she with her forehead clenched what's that some resistance to my grab or our handwritings she saw her writing in mine 'I've wondered why I don't feel anything for my father,' am I taking her with me or is she - (thought both are very ideological) I could use my college words

fire empty roads faith to get home

the real life came into her face and voice when she said 'you know I've often been interested in ...' I wait feeling it will be about me but could be about anything '... how it would be if you would take god into your life' I say 'why couldn't you be interested in how it is now, what makes you think I don't have, you see you've prejudged it'

her respect and love as if held off for that possibility and I say I'm revolted by the name jesus christ although the actual presence -
'it's another tribal book that instructs its own people'
'you can't think that, you couldn't put it together but I have to try to put it all together'
grande prairie not hard to move in it but care and interest helmer to see, the hospital and strangeness there 'I never expected to see you here' eager to tell

18

the leading of the spirit, I was glad to be led outside in boots walking in the sweet late light, heard music at the corner, and a corner stone and movie of trying to see the invisible airplane (the microphone beautiful on tripod and fine voice) battling without freedom at list writing a little loosening

working on the dreams flayed beaded bulls not bulls, steers another shaman drug book reassuring car car slippery track
cut block in the wet snow

soft bank with held currents again
not following sequence
dreaming strength, creation, possible lovely work career jenny
when I saw the spirit had led me to charlie having moved his trailer back there it was smile and say oh no no fright looks for signs strength (temporarily?) does as it likes, can

dim penetrations the sky, glancing not following

19

car engine had stars on wouldn't turn left it working on papers shaking the pumpkin poems thinking dope meaning I want to go out of this slow thick into what scared me how a thickened waiting
toothache I'm fat face rosy in green hat look like these

then through snow to the car afternoon try again oh you starts easily sticky road one postcard flying to la glace

at the coffee looking for cheapest, look up like her, janeen, thin and love, hello, smile, I take my hat off and run my hand through my hair, notice a slightly servile crouch the queen's here though no one sees her but me, I show her my car

stop at epp's mary sick red nose 'I have to see you today' I'm so dim what's happening 'ottawa phoned' importantly 'she said it's the loveliest film it should go' I'd come with the letter to jenny in my hand the farther parts want me to go but my secretary doesn't find envelopes or address more important was how she let me across janeen's path, that implies hers, intersubjectivity 'get drunk and have a good time' jam's postcard is the dimness from work in the dark - the good red road [

[the Canada Council arranging to have me at the International Experimental Film Congress in London in June]

alice/arden/girl/charlie/jules

jules' almost inchoate rapid talk telling his body losses and damages when his brother - asleep next to him - he dreamed an angel came in the window went down early and told his father garth is dead 'I believed the dream'

toothache he'd been sitting next to the wall smoking his pipe

20

huddling under every morning talks to myself
out through cold new custom bare legs to squat on the edge of the porch boards and see day
beaverlodge sleekly
hythe bath [in the Hythe Hotel] reading canadian information dizzy sitting on the floor to dress door open air through
reading over veal cutlets
everytime I look up he smiles quickly I hold out feel how tough and right
delicious smell arriving and leaving over the mud at the laundromat and a fine boy looking the way I look when I like car brown splashed car fine past backing up see only the road it's so bumpy

in valhalla a ditch full of water next to a fence, looks like a pretty canal
home in the door rapid without thinking fire to make crashed wood from bridge plants go to bed hot water bottle sink know I'm sinking what thought the scared what was it saying where speech gets different a tough wind I leave it and the fire come back the wind's gone, fire's slight
restless what, walk around bring in the pile of papers and work imagining movie also daydreaming the festival lyrics work, doing beautiful invention from the vision I like most

but death, the side, putting its price on every moment at evaporating justifying art not knowing in the writing finding the gathered phrases and thinking how to put written/spoken/pictures into lyrics
feeling the old way of working my dim touch
it's trusting and the discursions are its anxiety

21

many owls white and brown hunting

sun and once more make love to myself when I get up it's at my feet on the bed saturday room soaked fruit lonely restless work at the valve as well as I could
through grass and through grass not finished trying to remember writing it to know what meant gradually understood it partially resist got rid of some stones notes
wondering whether I'm out of the flood or whether I've absorbed it the two underground their patchy obsessive fine and stupid yammer I hear their wordplay and don't like it daphne and stein none of the joy of delicate language it's nearly foreign but felt curiously val's emotion what it was to her out cold wind melt sun I see almost nothing to the post office and into the store hello surprised as if I hadn't prepared as I used to, for that abrasion and wrong
I'm submerged is it fat lasse not wanting to move to collect wood into the trunk and then finding more, back to work heavy brain lonely unable
get in the car north, the spring lake road
at the corner think grease walk up and down heart pressure thinking will I try it or back up even worse she slides digs through the sensation coming out of a hole motor and body loosen at the furthest
I could go so silent the scrape of chin on collar
useless, about 5 point turn and home you, I can't speak to you no life and you don't warm me
lonely even radio concentrate on flowering and seeing
more sentences his sensibility loses me

22

first waking remember to say there as a rushing out back under sun still strong and the room not cold look into roethke there's live in him, can't read much want to work excited my territory get the pile the man whose heavy step easy to order type out bearded woman when it's the woman with a hole in her head it's harder because made by the voluptuous one and exaggerated but has to stay as it is, I took it all apart, felt and remembered the time, can't put it together what did she know I don't, then nnae in a singleship the sweet original and two directions, inland and ocean the joy of the place but struggling unable to grasp how to organize the picture, because it didn't know

between walked in sun to see and hear water in the ditch sense of technical struggle coming didn't like how the move made my seeing greed but couldn't stand it when it did focus, through the blue string strap camera, wanted to go back to

writing am not at the furthest concentration momentary saw red pickup toward bridge in a powdery pink light mauve clouds, string of white high swans dotted and clumping stretching flickering many birds first frog sound whistle in the porch yellow sundown clear pale intense yellow NW

radio all day c often here in that writing

23

I'll just bring her here and hold her under the cover is this wrong because there's a real body the vague mess of pictures, observed, talk, feel without any depth

tooth spears and so it's to car have to get the mail her out of date and already taken back hurts on top of a sick or vague presence already, from tooth? or is brain ill
drive fast and easily although wondering if I have the presence to take care sad's coming back the house and yet it would be easier if she wasn't there - if she's in vancouver that will happen and I'll be in full pain - might be alright - then it'll be over - I'll be jealous of her excitement - already ejected from it - not have to look after her discomforts - house with luke and judy - should I be making a strategy

beaverlodge café locked in time magazine about gay not moralizing escape - dentist - he was comforting, accent, his nice smell and strong efficient movements tooth out and he's gone without a word in a minute, when I call him back he was willing (gold tooth showing) and touched me I liked it - the raw strong tooth there so long home fast again spring going on I see

falls into the creek but home with newspaper susan thinner sit inside can't work camera obscura chantal's voice interesting about fetish her try to write fine barely a day more swan line, owls, heat unanxious

can liberations from anxiety be made

[letter - not sure this one's here]

There's been no sun. Is it still humid. Are you still sick.

A pile of paper today. It's so scrambled now. There's been an order in how the mail has sorted. You were writing desperation while I was sending love. Then I got the desperation but you'd begun to send reassurance. I'm unable to send anything, write every day, finally send a very small image. And then your replies arrive to all the talk I haven't sent. And nothing's clear but the energy of your struggle, you're in impressive labour.

Went parked at the swan's house, partly thawed, read sheet after sheet in sun and wind sorrowing and enjoying along with you but I don't know more than you.

You want me at the airport? If you come mid-June we could arrive together. Takes thinking, do you have to book. I'd need decompressing too.

It seems we're sent exploding and have to figure out by experiment how to come down right.

Echo: I sometimes hear as if a dictation, when I write, stop and refuse. It's when I refuse I hear it. It's custom or whatever makes words slide. Feels like being used.

I was many years in my trouble before its description was published and even now it's only in certain worlds anyone knows about it. Wd like to talk to you about seduction. Your description of hysteric sounded like whoever I've loved frustrated, Roy, Cheryl and her friend, you when I'm mad at you especially when I think you're glamorizing someone else.

I know you need to finish the thesis in some form, I've always known that I think. Only how long will it take you to know what its form doesn't have to be. Actually I like your thesis and wish you'd send me some, I don't think it's my rival, the only part of it I doubt is the way you wildly, even insanely, misjudge how long it takes to do any part of it.

It would be hard to bear if in helping you to your mighty work I lost mine. You know I have to beware. Do you imagine it that way and its counter. We are you know work rivals like Sandy daren't be, it takes care. What's your first thought to that.

One of the ploys is to be stupid and anxious till the other comes out of intelligence to be with one in that dis grace, and then zoommm. Or padpad sneak away to work and fame. I'm watching.

Are you going to be cross on account of my international festival.

You could write - oh it's funny your shameful secret's just like mine about wanting to be a great writer and not being great enough to even admit it - out your difference, write something where you're on the line.

I was on the line in Trapline but where's the line gone. Out of movies, just when I'm equipped? Not a joke.

Where you talked about Pound-Browning-Ismail it got very alive. What if being a man = wanting to be the sort of writer a woman couldn't be.

Yeats and Roethke both wanting to write a wild old wicked woman.

"I have to tell my parents. I can see it, fifty years from now." Is it the telling or the doing. Is it any telling that'd say "I'm not what you hope, I'm better" and know it's true.

You really felt that about the remark about Thatcher?

If the reasons aren't found does it become mythological.

I've thought you were in Oedipus distress. Why are you betraying our beautiful intimacy for that boss who understands nothing. It's for the money, little one, I can't be a queen without him. But the little one knows there's a law being obeyed and it's the one that says a hungry body can't love itself or its own flesh, otherwise there's no. What? Reading how plants become toxic to their own pollen and only self fertilize at the last chance. In women's politics and gnosticism:

24

religion / self improvement / pop music / about 'life' I wonder whose idea 'life' is and feel reflected in my philosophic these unconscious mornings and short days day 'thank you for this day' 'this day the lord has given us' random books golden bough what an odd - about the bull as tree and also torn apart what is this dreaming - next to persephone

restless get in the car go to mary - oo! field steaming and I got nervous camera do I know how it's a little self conscious and worried, I mean the essential unconscious part like acception a position for the camera felt the distance from focus but also the presence of other moments - the white rock and the top of the frame - ie memory - it seemed important to take it, to have begun, in case I couldn't balancing moral and the push to do danger

evening drive for water the ditches full and reflecting a ravishing smooth sky going by it the catch at the diaphragm an unreleased thrill feeling my distance from the fullness the other world is when entered this one in its bliss

the field was: coagulation theme recognized, beauty of white whirling out of black, cosmological, air wind but in truth I didn't see it and wasn't penetrated or only shallowly and then driving feeling the power and m telling the girl naomi who spoke with her hands, and how she felt about spiritual midwifery her watching and seeing and liking

25

on the wall no light squares 'thinking' rejoicing toward coffee make a good pancake toothache still hurts sometimes in the depth of the jaw the unknown territory speaking for the first time nice pure pain slight just now cranberry cocktail jar spoke to me like a fly buzzing

the happy journal what was in that day alice bailey blue cover at first able to read then captured by the lecture an inner structure of thought what is that her categories I don't understand the difference between mind, soul and brain and don't want to be part of the empire of the lord but was happy thinking

eyes hurt eyes hurt not right have obstruction the creature and as if out of focus light scars something between although if I push I can make the familiar things I liked when she said the 'lower' kingdoms would learn consciousness through humans

eyes aching afternoon went to bed tooth hole head eyes was long vague in bed want to be more here but not - night cars turned off what angry with j what else

26

light straight through to wall dreams, two sets, paul, a better lillian gathering alert! can you come and unconscious too

it's pouring the creek's wide broad flood and knowing under the broad flood there's a deep narrow own streambed camera after opening upstairs and seeing flood from there found beautiful line drawings red willow yellow grass in not sky not ground that was the loveliest not gathered attention

to mail saw the swans the marvel of easy car in the field, heard, back car standing open cleaned - it was seeing the swans cleared the day - cleaned car, set bed on porch - knowing I'd go out with the microphone - then equipment all nicely stowed to the field set its lovely ear toward them tested found the zit came from headset at first slightly then remarkably it picked them up as well as natural ears

[The parabolic mic picked up the radar signal from the American DEW line base at Saskatoon Mountain.]

and hammering and sawing better, at that site rereading j who said be good and smart while I'm vicious first impulse is cooperative had three irritated notes not to mail - that lovely woman at the post office - oh this familiar but belonging to them - mrs flaten - could see her and still shine into her and made her pretty she came to see the cupboard she and mrs wells attached to the house, both, today

27

this day pleasure morning wrote the pleasure of waking outside bliss sun early live writing but left the letter, at the post office the pretty woman and three fat letters lake wind sun to read them drive home they're crawling flying in the passenger seat the reply and clamped to it until eyes and head gone again confessed done and felt exposed but what is it stripped bare by bachelors they say go back into the wilderness don't think you've cleverly found the way red airplane a rotten piece of wood pulled up out of the grass far away today 'working' as she asked I say I pine for woman's beauty double doubled
swans' bodies above a lure circling
the shine off the creek water and sun
what's being left out

momentary sense of penetration

[letter]

I miss hearing about him and her and Sheila and HongKong excursions and miss telling you little joys and interests. Suddenly feeling the deadness of night in a room and sleeping on the porch again. Delight of being in the currents of strong wind, hearing some ducks, seeing a star move south from the edge of the porch pillar intermittent with head under the cover and woke this morning in sun from a dream like a magazine story feeling my body as bliss.

Then washed my hair in creek water while the pancake stayed warm under some bananas and thought from the smell, oh Earth Conditioner. It is such potent spring. The creek extends nearly up to the post with the horns. Broad flood with its buried in water former channel. Water falls off the fields. Black furrows with blue sky standing in the curves. Two swans foraging old barley with some ducks. Owls cruising the ditches. Long threads of swan dots or more like arrows blinking crosslight south west.

Sadie Flaten came to visit yesterday. She came because she'd had a disagreement with her niece about whether the kitchen cupboard in the Olson place was only a small one, or, as she said, goes from the corner right up to the window. I sat her where she didn't have to look at me socially and she was telling me the rest of it before I could begin to remark on the weather. Her husband's death twenty years ago. "He didn't come in for supper and I said, Gus, Daddy hasn't come in for supper and we all went out in the field to look for him. His outfit was standing there but we didn't see him and then Gus saw him laying dead." She'd come to look at some woman living alone by choice. I found I had something for her, as if her anxiety wasn't deep and I could send a jet of something right into her and make her smile like a kid. Then she put on her little overshoes and went home.

You said you dumped your mother.

Your letters this month I open them dreading and know by the hatred I feel that they mean the injuries.

Will I go through this with her.

Can I see through to anything. The last ten all came at once. Mr Fimrite [in the post office] said "Some boyfriend you've got there." I said "It's not a boyfriend, it's a girlfriend, we have a lot of business."

-

The shaman of mind technology in grey pants. Yes that's your power dream, you named it.

Magic is when it's power for a person seeing self as in some way at war, or competitioon with all other selves.

I don't know if that's how it is. What strikes me in Foucault for instance is the way he's out of date because he doesn't understand intersubjectivity, the way being and knowing are passed around. Any hippy knows more about vibes and spaces.

What I found wrong in the Kits Witches was that model of each one as one. I don't mean something stupid, I mean the unwilled 'unwilled' transmission or sharing of information. An unknowing or partly unknowing participation.

I don't think I am any more the shaman of the old kind, though I can take pictures that look like it. I'm cautious and have refused many times. I still have shamanic materials, it's true. They signal an impotence (which is why, in Diana ). I'm trying again to see whether the beauty of scratched stones, and the ease I have in making those things, is in some way wrong or whether it's my right work. I'm not at an end of it. Here's this house, everything around it is beautiful and nourishes me. The other people from this place are mostly nourished by imported things, so have I made a useful vision or not? I know it's birthright, there from young.

The world of mind-bend is ther like an accusation. And always, you made it clear too, in terms of an opposition of male mind and female wholeness. That opposition is a con. Your Pound knew. Your Foucault would turn it into worlds in order to eras, I meant words. What do I do with this worlds. Does he.

I'm trying not to get trapped into either refusing Paris because it's your animus or giving myself to learning its skills to show you I am an X after all. Is there anything there I need.

Your ten letters in many ways seemed to scorn me.

The contemplative buddy and the man's mind. You knew that would kill.

I knew it was there. You finally said it.

Don't send it into shamans, it's the competition between you and me simply. Yes. I wanted a competition in a different way. These letters invite me to compete to kill. No. Have you come to see it as necessary. Do you think we'll never know anything unless we are willing to make it enemies. You're wrong, it isn't that I love the traitors, it's that if I love an exceptional quality I leave myself open to be betrayed. No one whose spirit isn't fine has ever got that chance. You've invited it to the execution as if you had a final disappointment. How is it you don't know better. Put together more of the parts. It is tenure isn't it, you want your important job. It would be hard for you here, will test out your dream. I mean the other one. Your two dreams pulling in different ways. Do you know that well enough so you won't say it's my fault.

28

luke in a car I let roll back, he was unconscious we were on an island, he came

this morning footnotes mighty talk felt released to talk about thoughts and pleasures but some uneasy to have been got into the world of human indulgence

eyes eyes are you going away laboring from day to day living on the porch bed and table
the automatic pleasantness with alice how does it hold - by feeling for skills j's letters, when I saw more I felt tired been admiring her work
now she goes off with tarot and dianna
will we look back longingly to these days of private reconstruction together
talked out
eyes oh eyes don't go be alright
eyes look to divide in two
where's the rest of me:
listen and find out
back of knee hurts

washing brown car on dead grass looking at its small injuries

mud holding feet the house go to it as if sentimentally, stop it, work at the putty
but couldn't finish third window, wanted skillful m and imagined how it would be minutely attentive in the cracks but couldn't, went back to letting automatic wondered about learning to work like that because it was set up to belong to him and so leave

often feel a worried face
bed early [small triangle which is a symbol for touching myself] and for a moment feeling the lucence of sky not a surface but deep

29

[I drive to Dawson Creek to see Paul Kinsella who is working as a porter on the * train]

this was the sunday morning slight warm sun waking to car and anticipating journey and now write when it's dark again and I'm come from beginning the dust local road turning back for boots riding out attending to bump motor sounds resistance or not in engine the highway and up and down, alone, past a woman at a shed on a bank above the road on left (is this 'me'?) and then see her yard full of medicine poles with each a birdhouse - go in and ask her? - 'on the way back' - thinking what is this carelessness going to cost - will I be able to keep concentration with him - coming down into town seeing the steam on the train - early light still - I like going to the private part of the train, peace river car - 'porter'? 'i'm here' 'which?' 'in here' (the washroom) 'do you want something?' - ready to smile but I missed the moment that would have said something and then babble as I've learned - keep trying to hold a line and steer to an essence but how he fritters, helpless and willing, greeting, available complaint obsession

I was suspended seeing and feeling and then trying to imagine it his experience and imagining me in it different long thin rooms, the country and the little green sea, polaroid eager to try first two fine cold by then sky covered sitting on the street talking about what love is intent in old forms - do the forms of excited talk - passion desires its own recurrence - valéry, england, child brain tumor five died at nine
we were women when I talked about luke
paul's misery without a good formulation

the transparent ear in the dark a single drummer with one song

[as I'm arriving home in the dark, hear the first frog of the season singing alone and tape it]

30

this one for me [triangle] morning not for you - threw out the pancake what to eat fluffed eggs, 4, coffee, ugh, this ugly face and hair in eyes cut a clearing around face, ears again beating through synchronicity almost nothing except 'soul behaves like a point' confirmed

'I am a star traveling together with you'

time for the house drier, come into the clearing warm enclosure of the trees gauging two sides badly, then did crude impatient sweeping, liked to sink into magazine stories come back - where? don't remember that moment from before is this me eyes rough, what was I thinking of wanting to do everything in the house well to build a concentration into it, carrying broken glass dusted papers to a place under the caraganas, crossing hidden water furrows
the long grass, what to do with it 'our' the suspension in it who'll be here with geese grazing the barley stubble thinking: what is this understanding immediate history, seemed a thing I did younger, and done however well, as whatever foundation, ie magazine stories, and this time's, letters to mary - without energy, supper, she was glad to see me, be away, lemon pie,

then - the road in the old house a bench and a table, maybe the cupboards light horizontal flood, red willows
I marveled at how the camera finds a certain vision, that resembles itself, things never before seen now penetrating that home and the instinct to crocuses small animals wanting to take them to her alive alive fields and willows, trees

[letter]

[floor plan of lake house second storey]

Have been working here afternoons in heat held by the four sides of trees. Precinct. The trees and under are wonderful.

Been given a woodstove.

We began like settlers by cutting trees.

It's a bird sanctuary.

Chipmunks whistle very loud from hidden, thinking to scare me. Glass going across their corridors.

Swept and old putty chipped.

Bench and table my grandfather made for outside.

Secretary finding scrounge.

Bamboo pole - it's not far enough. But bamboo bucket? Or wood.

Are there mosquito nets like monasteries'? If not expensive yes for outside. Inside, screens.

My dream for the house is us inventing exercises, turning the competition to finding the ways to build away from anxiety's habits. Your range is why.

Thai - yesterday (before you said) imagined asking you to bring thai weed from Vancouver. Remembering a woman who smoked it to comfort and inflame her old husband (ie marriage aid).

The dark blue dress in my fantasy was something east, I thought Malay. Mine came from finding a little roll of fine fabric that color in the upstairs middle room - a dress taken apart, kept for the pattern. East window.

You said our damp souls. Crossed with I said damp moth and man.

Crossings seem to be you write, I pick up, letter comes.

Shin bones vibrate where'd you get that. I've never heard it told. You said 2 or 3 times.

Did that last pour, mine, do anything for you. I was shamed after.

Your remarkable sense of the 10 cups. Your secretary did it to please you.

Dianna and distribute coins to needy. I thought you need it, but does D. What would she do there besides be yr kid. Doesn't she need streets and cute boys. 2 years older than Luke. Ask her but tell her how bare and poor. They'd fight over Ezra. I don't know her but she doesn't like me. Is there something in the fantasy you haven't pulled. Are you scared of Luke.

Do Pound or Chinese or your mother know any houseblessing customs. Do you have the 2 vols of Ancient Na-Khi Kingdom of South-west China and other stuff on the ceremonies, and Agassiz too?

To translate other languages into human language.

When I read "News of the Universe" [Jam's piece in *] I have a feeling I've been working on what's in it. Before and since. Years. Did you know what you were writing. You collected it, did you understand it. "Plants express the appearance of forms."

Tape recording: one drummer repeating for half hour the same phrase at 5 sec intervals, each time different (a frog - oh wait till you see the transparent ear).

Did you think of what I said about straight lines in nature, and currents.

Ch'ou shu for house.

Artemesia. Would you like to do what you write.

You and my aboriginals to bring back: didn't you like to find out they had a same name.

[sketch of floorplan for ground floor]

Why are there no more notebooks, red spine. Urgent to find some. Mine are full and they are the only right ones.

Bring something hardy to plant.

It isn't how to spell out Pound in the language of university, surely it's how to go on from himm, and when you know what of him you can use surely the thesis is done.

Was it a god his suffering renewed? -
I saw my father shrinking in his skin,
he turned his face; there was another man
walking the edge, loquacious, unafraid.
He quivered like a bird in birdless air,
yet dared to fix his vision anywhere.

Roethke for Yeats

Your math gift of transposing shapes, implicit equivalence. Did you use to have it rarely or always.

Left women out of your list. Gertrude with calcified womb, Plath dying of imagination, Roethke of intoxication. Alive is a self interfering pattern. Body and the other that tries to live for itself not body-species in a knot. Self interference is what makes it exist. A structure like perpetual motion machine that uses a part to interact with another part so no outside hold or push is needed. Tao the self interfering.

I thought you better than Kenner if I remember because (don't remember) I was so electrified by the stuff you gathered.

You haven't replied to so much.

I've been alive too this while.

Will you tell me some of the sights of your town again, have you stopped knowing it's there. The marvels I've told you not acknowledged. I feel wasted and will find somewhere else to tell them. Too long this way.

-

Our secretaries have been in touch, did yours tell you the Canada Council wants to send me to London June 9-17, international festival.

I'm listening to tape of swan talk coo gathered this afternoon. Magic microphone, want to show it to you, transparent dish scoops waves, aims and focuses [parabolic mic]. The piano was in the house, bed was in the garden. Sophisticated Dianna would hate it there and be contemptuous of Luke. Judy will be around, probably not at my house, Luke not till July I think. He goes back to England after 6 weeks. I am listening carefully and gently. Working on the house trying to prepare another level. Will be job again in May, but plant a garden. Don't feel it's time to say anything to your knifings. I have said, but none of it was right, I'm not sniffed off. And in fact work on it every day. Wondred if that unwrittenthough gets to you, probably, your secretary picked up the dark blue Indian dress and that was only a fantasy - you seem also to have visited in the person of somebody called Val Power.

may 1

dear socrates, because your little town, dust, olive trees and people eagerly wondering the poor stonemason: he believed he had a divine mission to question all statements and that a voice guided him. the inspired hanging from their muse like chains from a magnet. I like to get into the car early cold bacon and bread storeman's open gaze as if he likes helmer with tape recorder to try it, the dangerous perching above his attraction taping and my voice, the seduction is evasion, with hulda it came out without the slant curve, retraction, distaste, draws back into hearing itself. back from him, how else could it be

breakfast on the bench, cold wind, sun, radio talk show about american television being 'interested' in it each voice, 'well - anyway, that was my opinion' academy imagined, if I were the fine philosopher on the line sorting tapes ear to the speaker listening to m and me intimate in different times eccentric thinking never foolish darker voice and the rapid also eccentric younger voice pushing in asking insisting

dream a university three courses one american lit one underground film sat through one couldn't stand it - university a skyscraper with one face each window covered with plywood riots in the square getting out of a car climbing back up the hill blossoms bottle of wine

sorted small tapes raving from coffee wanted to write - flip, no, but then revised snakes easily and sorting images threw many, their use obviously absorbed

bernice intent her complaint pouring out at the door, her small red face

2

overcast but sun under, a voluptuous soft very fine [triangle] let well - bacon! and coffee to rush up for front window

drive away to mail and then - what - write you - roethke, I'm 'talking' and draw the house, up to see it, at first not knowing then work fast moving boxes of rubbing loving the rooms best going out under the trees and bushes seeing things bare that never will be again in the year the laid down grass walking through bare slight corridors under, the thrill child size under each of the spruce a porous, animal holes, cones laid down found raspberries trees and among them stones looking for treasure for the house granary and the jump of pleasure to see a blue coffee pot, a dove-tailed box, true confession, army manual how to use bayonet taking a new territory thinking this delight still doing it this way, still, again, what am I giving up for this time there with you bare, desperate, you don't know what you're doing hanging onto and what will we find in that house, mine not at all yours except for finding, you never dreamed before what's the matter with my eyes days feeling future - came home (stuck - willow sticks) - omlid's, the other house, a bench, bookshelf - rewrote, found the first long dense -

3

dying grandmother had taken slide, in a white sock on foot over knee baggy brown pants crotch eyeglasses [sketch] luke was dying was with m and e wailing sorrowing, he was under bed might hear woke, he's not -
in a taxi with judy and another woman - london - where are we going - we're going to - and then to - luke's in taxi trunk wide space why
j's tarot - he's on a jagged track edge of water going away one cup missing paul: that he's going to be doing some momentous move

4 friday

'even then I would look at you and think, there's more there than I put in' I was waiting for a revelation of my special genius as a child, never admitted before what she said was less but lengthened my neck, also she admitted he was an enemy and I admitted a very handsome enemy because I asked if I was smarter or stupider, and she said 'but I'd never dream of ..! more in control of your circumstances' in her green sweater and shiny hair I said rumplestiltskin: 'you'll go on a long time'

waking under snow and loving [triangle] felt the density of the womb with its only slightly halted timing you j

[letter]

Can I call you my dear: this moment's dear. I want to tell you ordinary daily things, Mary in a green sweater standing at the door letting herself show glad to see me. She's happier than for years because she has the right job. He doesn't speak to me, doesn't dare, that's boring meals (and so bad food), but things are said in his presence, and mine, that know their target. Impersonal things. "Snow is the poor man's nitrogen."

May. This morning I woke under snow a quarter inch thick, three sleeping bags and some blankets between it and me, it was exciting. Potatoes and onions cooking in the kitchen, with curry. Rice from yesterday and always remembers you. Nearly 10 and still blue daylight. A rotten log in the fire. I noticed after a while ants pouring out of the end suddenly awake and dizzy. They didn't seem to have the right senses for their circumstances, toward and away from the fire, knocking into each other, a few found their way out but then there was the house, they seemed to feel life in my slipper and come toward it. thought I should save them but could only have done it by suddenly understanding their senses and so knowing how to direct them to the poker bridge. Felt I could have, and wouldn't expand enough, out of not wanting to rock the world. In fairy tales when you save an ant it later helps you sort grains. If I'd saved them this would've been a fairy tale and ---.

The passionate person who could save ants. I betrayed her and went back to a children's book about little creatures.

Your so-different season. I wish you'd tell me it. Tell me a walk in the hills.

Thatcher's in. The curry's good.
Cooking tonight, was wishing for Hong Kong.
Is Sheila getting married then

How are these days - I'm healthy, red cheeks of a sound country person. But without edge and vision. Lonely for edge and vision. But it's been too wet and cold for April retreat and now I have to go back to work. Local I hope. Maybe planting. Dear one I want to come'n save you from illness and anxious but when I see you o will I be smart and fine enough.

-

Once again you took all day. Now a candle shaking on the typewriter. What's to know. I'm worthy of you. My 'man's mind' is intermittent as in anyone. You've told me some familiar heartbreaking secrets. Am I going to throw you away. I'm enclosing your notice so you'll know I know how. And what do I mean. I'll take back the ultimatum. Come if you want. Between then and now will you understand the impossible bind you put me in. I'm willing to work but if I understand you're putting me through what you won't go through yorself you're going to have me ---- I don't know if I'll want to break you or if I'll just go quietly away.

A nice letter from Roy saying Luke's out of school 20th July - 5th Sept and can come.

The suspense is hard. No it isn't hard it is a small recurring ache at the back of the throat and an occupation by the voice that argues uselessly. Are you working or are you indulging an abusiveness. I'm getting sick of you. No I'm not sick I'm very well but I wonder if you'll want to go on in this blaming, which isn't a fine war. Moving around the house I feel you there but when I think of you here hating the way you are -

There's something wrong in the balnce. I feel I should stop you by a roar of indignity. But the roar isn't there. Baffled sore. And then recovery wishing you well.

It is beautiful here. Who else could find you a location like this for while you wait to be ready to go to Paris. But you'll be uncomfortable in the camping and you'll have no openings for swagger and in the end you won't like it and that will be sad. I asked my mother what it means when someone complains energetically for two months. She said "It sounds like she's feeling the pull of her two cultures."

5

saturday's near each other dark snow wet on the melting edge roof dripping lying longtime in bed until many pickups went by both ways [triangle] a slower more confident timing it's not specific and doesn't change the breath then I jump up in the longjohns, feel myself, pleased with body under old cotton and then gather up shingles into the cardboard box, and cook scrambled eggs and make toast no coffee pressure of having twenty dollars left until when? eat and restless take letters to daph - nel - j nicely stamped reading bits of lucier satie sound inventions from woodbox don't look much although furrows with new snow are lovely resisting the countrysides buy coffee tea defiant spend seven dollars and come home to warm room papers uninterested habit work on green notebook think of tape recorder read phrases and listen to quality - what voice says of phrase - what has life as voice - some small sequences - notebook much is too metaphysical to use, shame as a shameful indulgence, think, good, it has to be implicit, most of it has to be implicit and yet how can it be made about words/imagination/pictures imagining precinct of the house post and mirror piece in long grass where then evening bored is this quiet life ended, finishing off, thought to read kawabata, and then, aloud, listening to the voice I don't hear reading it still pinches in some words that have a wince erotic, father want to sift the voice, it is still pleasant

[Reading from Snow country into the tape recorder.]

6

last night getting into bed top blankets wet melted snow long cold clenched awake thinking slowly body uncurling down morning it's warmer almost sun crows sunday - and what - noon - radio - sweep heat water wash dishes listening to broadbent and callers - to the creek in boots step on the low place dip white pail takes orange water beavers housecleaning piles of mud and sticks like wet nests - to the house - warm on south with putty paint and one pane - upstairs snow on the floor - chipping at ceiling peels, unputtied upstairs the east window gouged hand and fell in said aloud that something was strange - there she and luke, it's me wanting to gather in a beautiful and magical place I've found and prepared - field almost not sticking - kept driving - wanting to find another old house - restless wanting to drive but not fit to walk

home exercise on foucault tea and toast and to be with her - radio science interesting stuff tooth transplants cancer tests bee orchid

dark slide projector luke and she first box, it signified itself by falling on the floor and scattering sissinghurst was seeing little flaws on edges luke's out of focus beautiful

dolemos recklessly remembering the consciousness of strangeness wells and jail and war, helmer listening, ellie in a red shirt imagining the war al mackenzie's story, the man's haircut as if still in the army, twitching

[letter]

Pain at the breastbone. Does it point to you. Don't know, although you're named in it. Your letters have been a long time not knowing I'm here apart from being your danger: I'm lonely and restless, the spring has been so drawn out suspended. My love's at the other house but I can't move there yet, it's too cold to live without the stove and the road's still too wet to get it there.

I don't know how to get some money and the last twenty dollars (I don't mean send me some, it would be too late by the time, anyway), food and gas for how long? A familiar anxiety, so many times and it always comes out but imagine it: a sort of hardship you don't put or find yourself in. I'm tempted to steal glass for the house but can't because it would make me crooked with these people, having something to hide.

Suspension. Over a month of it, oh! hard to bear. And not close to the country either, not able to read much, eyes hurt. Seems I can't be again until June and to have to waste May - don't believe in this living in the future and try different creations, disciplines but I want to be us there in that house learning what's next. Pressure, an intolerable pressure. Can something be made of it.

It was hard to tell you about money but I did. Twice. See whether we can transform it out of a shame into an information. It's an old shame anyway and not mine (my father's).

But tell me how it felt.

Now it's moved to the diaphragm.

I haven't heard from you since I told you about London. How can we fit ourselves. When were you going to come, is your ticket bought, will you be able to leave. How are we to get through this wait. Shall I mail this anxiety or hang onto it and say nothing 'til it's clear. Oh it's so long. I want to go to the festival, need to see work, but.

Have you finished Sordello - nevermind we'll be firm and fine and work and meet at last. How'd it be if I had a job while you worked at home, it would be sunny days only, might be alright and just enough money to manage and working with plants. You'd have it all quiet.

Later when I'd written 'quiet' I got up went to the car, wet roads under a northwest arch pale orange that way, a storm half an hour gone. The road from the highway greasy for the last half mile, hanging onto the road by very quiet movements of the steering wheel. Sneak.

Walking through the stubble fields testing how far boots still sink, and getting to the house when there was only a little light from the north. Sun's already setting quite far north. Going from room to room shyly and looking through all the windows. The upstairs north bedroom will have such lovely summer nights.

Air busy with ducks' wings. Groups of 3 4 5 in a hurry toward water.

The magic of the place so strong, little by little I'm looking out from it at how the land lies. It's a tentative - coming to it in the dark I noticed - courtship. And the front room, this is comical, I realized, going straight through the kitchen to the back room, it felt in the dark as if I should say good evening to the front room first, as if it were the parents of whoever I really wanted to see, and that was the upstairs north bedroom!

You may be sending something there, as if I went there to be with you.

Such delicate heart-rending music on the radio. The breadth of the land I could see to northwest, the way the opening of sky in one direction made a long distance, air full of sounds. Those delicate marks of willow branches. I'm telling you a moment I can't tell you. Please will you like me again not because you'll be safe with me forever, as I know I'm not with you, but because I'm here and won't be here for long and we can talk to each other and be in the same times and places and if we really are mortal isn't that already enough to make us cheerful together.

-

A goose couple standing, at some distance, in the water on a field, twilight. They have their back to the road, with a look of thoughtful intimacy as if seen when not impersonating animals: were they thinking about what to do next, settle or try further north.

7

necessity and adventure - car - hythe - laundry - shale - and my pink thing's expired - leaning on a tree as waiting room through window I see he's with clients - he beckons - on the hill plantation trees - driving in - knowing it's maybe a new time - (pop songs and each their reference) - who - she's not my picture, I'd imagined a good woman liking plants - the library, a man with large eyes and boy's hair, he has something - then when he talks he's too eager to tell awards and projects, hungarian, I think, he's eager to please the grown-ups I tell him borges he isn't willing to quite hear what I say from a female, irritating, you can do better than this - mags, hunger and coffee made anxiety, worried about all the information in the world a nice building but not people einstein sweet old woman with soupy moustache picture took the nature home for it money oh worried about money on post office steps another I said you'd get hurt home to talk pressure pain then seeing the built clouds with their lilac, blues, high round brightness and dark below storm to the house to the house, is this a real moment - ducks - it's multiple and lovely anyway dark over orange to the north coming loving to the house opening doors looking through windows and verandah rails ducks loud flight upstairs north window willow branches came home writing it realized it was joy mouth open

8

in today old rage heroism novel devouring them you me what am I made too small for myself freckles nobility worship and in pearl buck the same and loving passion
and you dawdling in your self pities and other pities
and I hanging around this house getting indebted for necessities suspended and useless

reading novels by necessity

broke

no bold moves and miracles

and waiting with honesty the awful goodness and fright of them

and lost by weakness and goodness and strength
every community

and you fine partly and partly by novel fantasy but never the legendary rightness again and I'm caught to want it and so are you and under this there's the firm necessity to be with you in spite of my lost miracle in spite of lost heroes and friends and not knowing what to do

9

reading buck, china

10

interview - cross and unwilling [for Beaverlodge agricultural station job as a field hand] the ugly board a test, name three weeds awkward first interview I've ever blown angry this fat person can stupidly question me I looked out the window watched surprised how I wouldn't perform uneasy after as if I didn't know whether I wanted it or not even morning, didn't want it
wondered if it was senile - confused as with carmichael

hulda at lunch hand over her mouth to keep voice from carrying I asked whether she'd married straight from home and she told me her husband had sexual intercourse with her oldest daughter 'he told us to go' or else I just take the bull by the horns and then it feels good if you come out the other side because of how she looks childish listening to bernice using her mother's manner

glass and put in upstairs, down working the putty putting it in nicely

11

filmed moon

part 3

up north volume 2: 1979 february-october
work & days: a lifetime journal project