Well, I've been gone and you have been being you, all, while I've been,
as I say, gone. Tonight I'm listening to Ursula's poem and Mike's and
Lawrence's, listening as I read and then let the words, like wine,
swill a little. Lawrence finds that minute when doing wrong in a
relationship suddenly may come right, that crossing of the river bit.
Stream, maybe; river seems too wide. Ursula marks sunlight on arms,
nothing to do with weapons, the small but great comfort of natural
warmth. Mike, well Mike is gone as a result of what? Words of
congratulation and what he sees as censorship. I trust that he'll
return.
After the dance competition in Vancouver I went down to the Sound to
commune, walking the steps I once described in a poem, reaching the
rocky shore and the fabulous view. A man had made piles of balanced
rocks, in the spirit of Andy Goldsworthy's work, or perhaps that of the
Inuit. He was from Quebec. He called me over. We chatted, sometimes
in English, sometimes in a clash of Frenches. I said I admired the
beauty of his work, the choices about form he'd made, his sense of
color. He said other people run away from him because the strand is
deserted, because he has a beard, because he drinks while he works. A
woman showed up. There was something between the two of them. I
wondered if I was caught in a scheme. I asked her what kind of ducks
bobbed on the water. She said they were coots. They asked why I was
not afraid, why I did not think them weird. I said that several people
around me had died recently and because of this I am no longer so much
worried about how the world ought to be; I am trying to enjoy what is.
They liked this.
I said "Goodbyes" and left. I have no idea if they were coots... or
murderers...but I know that the line between art and murder may be
finer than I thought.
David Ritchie, Portland, Oregon
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