Dry Spell

In search of worms,

a small bird hops over many twigs,

beak a bit cracked and empty.

His tiny little belly is a vacuum

of hope,

making his dream of a short year hard.

Red Shift by Ted Berrigan

Here I am at 8:08 p.m. indefinable ample rhythmic frame
The air is biting, February, fierce arabesques
on the way to tree in winter streetscape
I drink some American poison liquid air which bubbles
and smoke to have character and to lean
In. The streets look for Allen, Frank, or me, Allen
is a movie, Frank disappearing in the air, it's
Heavy with that lightness, heavy on me, I heave
through it, them, as
The Calvados is being sipped on Long island now
twenty years almost ago, and the man smoking
Is looking at the smilingly attentive woman, & telling.
Who would have thought that I'd be here, nothing
wrapped up, nothing buried, everything
Love, children, hundreds of them, money, marriage-
ethics, a politics of grace,
Up in the air, swirling, burning even or still, now
more than ever before?
Not that practically a boy, serious in corduroy car coat
eyes penetrating the winter twilight at 6th
& Bowery in 1961. Not that pretty girl, nineteen, who was
going to have to go, careening into middle-age so,
To burn, & to burn more fiercely than even she could imagine
so to go. Not that painter who from very first meeting
I would never & never will leave alone until we both vanish
into the thin air we signed up for & so demanded
To breathe & who will never leave me, not for sex, nor politics
nor even for stupid permanent estrangement which is
Only our human lot & means nothing. No, not him.
There's a song, "California Dreaming", but no, I won't do that
I am 43. When will I die? I will never die, I will live
To be 110, & I will never go away, & you will never escape from me
who am always & only a ghost, despite this frame, Spirit
Who lives only to nag.
I'm only pronouns, & I am all of them, & I didn't ask for this
You did
I came into your life to change it & it did so & now nothing
will ever change
That, and that's that.
Alone & crowded, unhappy fate, nevertheless
I slip softly into the air
The world's furious song flows through my costume.

To Know Thyself, Know Thy Family

I recently sent a letter to my maternal grandmother. My mother has always been vague and dodgy about her side of the family, and I've never had any quality sit-down time with any of her relatives, so I was curious. I received a phone call not three days thereafter and had a wonderful conversation with my grandmother. I learned that her grandparents were Lithuanian (paternal) and Ukranian (maternal) Jews who came to America in the late 1800s. I also learned that my grandmother divorced my grandfather, Jim, 11 years before he died at the age of 65 and 10 years before I was born. He was a heavy smoker and suffered from severe hypertension. But perhaps most interesting, I learned that my second cousin once removed (my great-great-grandmother is his great-grandmother) is Dr. Richard Alpert, better known as Baba Ram Dass. He was a psychology professor at Harvard University in the early 1960s and happened to work side-by-side with Timothy Leary. He also ended up writing a book called Be Here Now in 1971. Here's a clip of Ram Dass in 2005 (he had a stroke in 1997, hence his dramatic pauses):

Strangely, I actually picked up his book in the Strand several weeks ago before knowing any of this and I almost bought it. Life is pretty crazy.