Dear Diary,                                                     7/17/07

Today Paul one upped my story about goldfinches-- something about feeding Hebrew-speaking parrots on Cayman.  What the heck...

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One time I spent a free evening reading a book of W.H. Auden poetry on the walking bridge, which also happeend to be the night of the Wine over Water festival.  I noted that I saw those who were enjoying the wine, and those who were holding the "wine bibbers are hellbound" signs.  The barbershoppe quartet groups in their matching top hats, the long haired hippis on the street corner. And they were quite at odds.

However, I had an experience that occurred in a group of three, which must mean that it was meant to be a story. I'd like it to be a poignant poem one day, but it barely may qualify as a story if I tell it.  How can I communicate how the third event was like a song, a point, the punchline, the culmination?  I can be a little sensitive to how people regard poetry; there are some very valid reasons for not liking it, especially when it falls into the hands of people who like to make it "precious" instead of letting it speak for itself; but when a moment is captured in a package of wit and brevity, that is the kind of poetry that I enjoy immensely, especially on the walking bridge, at a wine tasting festival.  (to which I had not paid admission, or tasted) ( I was a bystander. sitter.)

Three people interrupted my poetry reading in succession.  A man stopped by and said dismissively, oh, I dont 'do' much poetry... i'm sure I remember something from highschool.  ... The cold shoulder of one who remembers something from when he was obligatorily exposed to poetry one time in order to get a 'well rounded' education.

The second visitation was by a group of girls.  They stopped and said, Poetry!  oh yeah! We have to do some of that too... it's a humanities class... Petrarch... Neruda... I didn't like that one as much...   The fact that they said "we have to do some of that too" put me off a little... doesn't anyone assume one reads poetry for enjoyment? sharpening?  Is poetry always to be an "assignment", a punishment?

The third and final scene: a man, with  a glass of wine in his hand, saw me reading Auden and stopped to ask "are you required or are you reading for the like?" and when I said for the like, he offered me his glass of wine.