Williamsburg

I have taken to cutting letters and words out of old magazine subscriptions and gluing them to my paintings.

In each case I find myself liking the painting more, even in those instances where I had been entirely unsatisfied with the painting prior. "Whatever my place in this garden, it was not to be the gardener."

Occasionally a fish jumps. 



Oh I have been so busy. I work to recall stooping by the fence in that backwoods garden, the sheep's eyes drooping, the telltale dirt and lanolin on my fingers. I rubbed its face for thirty minutes and then the bugles sounded.

Who knew about the Rockefellers. Who knew about the Scandinavian girls whose hair never saw sunlight. We walked cobbled streets in shoes that squished with rainwater, rain coats no match for it; umbrellas no match for it. The horses continued grazing. The sheep laid down beneath the trees and looked at me through their wet wooly locks.

Sitting on the bridge over the narrow canal I wasn't afraid of the ghost boy laughing. American wysteria wrapped itself around the governor's palace. The horticultural librarian stood beneath it, transfixed.

What can I say of the gardens. They were green, and everywhere.



When I return home Wilson is beside himself. Three whole days and a babysitter no match for his loneliness. I read today that cats see humans as inexplicably large, non-hostile cats. "Where is my inexplicably large, non-hostile cat," Wilson must have wondered while I was away.