Images of 2006






Here are some words and images that come to mind when I think back on 2006, the best year of my life so far. This song will always make me think of you and 2006, because it takes me back to Duck where it all began. Happy New Year, Love.

A December 22 Photo Album

My heart is already on a fast-moving train, heading through the northeast corridor in the right

direction. How romantic of you to meet me at the 30th Street Station! I love who you are and who we are becoming together. That's me reading in the window there. I'm actually daydreaming of our rendezvous in the very near future. Right now the station platform is empty,but soon it will be bustling with Christmas travelers on their way to meet their lovers.

I can't tell you how happy I am to be coming your way. Where you are is where I want to be. See you at the station.

In Praise of Olive Oil

So many important things in life require olive oil. You can't really make a good vinagrette without a fine virgin oil. You could substitute canola oil, but it would just be disappointing. The key to a hearty minestrone is the green nectar mixed with fresh basil, and the best fresh pasta wants nothing more than a sprinking of good oil and fresh herbs. In the summer I love to drizzle oil on cold roasted vegetables, and in the winter what better marinade for fish or meat? I like to sop up a plate of silky oil with a thick crusty loaf of bread. There are probably other uses I have not mentioned. Life would not be the same without a beaker of olive oil. One should never go two weekends in a row without using plenty of it. Let me be your cook?

I'm Your Doctor

If you want a doctor I'd examine every inch of you.
If you want a partner come and take my hand.

. . . I'm your man.

"Anthem"

Dear Susie,
Even though I was driving in the wrong direction yesterday, I thought of you every minute, especially the dozen or so times when I played this song of ours. One of those times I was passing through Havre de Grace, which felt ordained. I know I put the lyrics up before, but now you can watch the performance any time you want. Love, W

Reflections of You

I feel myself becoming your mirror image, a little more each day. When you laugh out loud, my mirror neurons leap with joy. When you are pensive, they hunker down in a darkened sulcus. If you wink at me and nobody else sees, your signal hits my brain like a laser. When you cry I scramble, panicked, trying to stop the nerves from leaking. When you seduce me, my motor cortex and my senses scream back and forth through synapses. When you touch my face, all cortical lights and fires extinguish for a microsecond. I take each step you take, I handle every object you hold, I turn my neck and shoulder when you reach for something high, I kneel when you pray,I curl when your dreaming makes you curl, I fill the spaces you offer. I feel your reflection in my soul, a little more each day.

In Love With A Bureaucrat

Please, my love, sing to me of rebudgeting and setasides and whisper in my ear of allocations and fiduciary responsibility. It drives me crazy, but I want (no, I need!) to hear your throaty murmurings of line-item vetoes and continuing resolutions. Your sensual stories of fiscal years past and your breathy forecasting of shortfalls make me moan and . . . yes I said yes I will yes!

How Do I Love Thee?

#1 I love you

so much that . . .

. . . even thinking

of the rank and sulphurous stench of Scranton,

Pennsylvania's kindling culm piles makes me smile.

Hearthside, heartfelt

12 December 2006

Dear Susie, This morning I folded your clothes. I loved doing it. I want to fold your clothes always. I love you.

"Surely the sea is the most beautiful fact in our universe . . . everything is here that you could ever imagine."

11 November 2006

Dear Susie,

I really believe that I was falling in love with you in that week of sitting and walking by the sea. You are the most beautiful fact in my universe. You contain everything that I could ever imagine. Who knows, perhaps we will get to see another Atlantic Ocean sunrise in the not too distant future? I love you wide and deep and rough and serene.

Yours, W

Cliche watch

(or, adages that would be trite if they weren't so true)


Cliche #1 Sometimes it's way to easy to get caught up in the trees and lose sight of the forest.

Goya, eg.

Dear Susie,
This etching makes me think of yet another wonderful Sunday morning with you.
I love you. XXOOW

I love thee

to the level

of every day's

most quiet need,

by sun and candlelight.

"If It Be Your Will"




If it be your will/ That I speak no more
And my voice be still/ As it was before/ I will speak no more/ I shall abide until I am spoken for/ If it be your will

If it be your will/ That a voice be true
From this broken hill/ I will sing to you/ From this broken hill/ All your praises they shall ring/ If it be your will/ To let me sing/

From this broken hill/ All your praises they shall ring/ If it be your will/ To let me sing/ If it be your will/ If there is a choice/ Let the rivers fill/ Let the hills rejoice/ Let your mercy spill/ On all these burning hearts in hell/ If it be your will/ To make us well/ And draw us near/ And bind us tight/ All your children here/ In their rags of light/ In our rags of light/ All dressed to kill/ And end this night/ If it be your will

If it be your will.--L. Cohen

"Wild Geese"

You do not need to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clear blue air, are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting---over and over announcing your place in the family of things.

---Mary Oliver

"Anthem"

The birds they sang at the break of day/Start again I heard them say/ Don't dwell on what has passed away/ or what is yet to be. Ah the wars they will be fought again/ The holy dove She will be caught again/ bought and sold and bought again/ the dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring./ Forget your perfect offering./There is a crack in everything./ That's how the light gets in.

We asked for signs/ the signs were sent: the birth betrayed the marriage spent/ Yeah the widowhood of every government/ signs for all to see./ I can't run no more with that lawless crowd/ while the killers in high places say their prayers out loud./ But they've summoned, they've summoned up a thundercloud/ and they're going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring./ Forget your perfect offering./There is a crack in everything./ That's how the light gets in.

You can add up the parts but you won't have the sum./ You can strike up the march, there is no drum./ Every heart, every heart to love will come/ but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring./ Forget your perfect offering./ There is a crack, a crack in everything./ That's how the light gets in.

Ring the bells that still can ring./ Forget your perfect offering./ There is a crack, a crack in everything./ That's how the light gets in./ That's how the light gets in.

That's how the light gets in. --L. Cohen

The
Analogs
of
Susie
and
Wray








One day in the future, poets will write of a long-gone holy site known as Columcille, in what was called Pennsylvania, where the lovers Susie and Wray were said to have romped through the woods when their famous passion was just blossoming.