Astronomy

So there are a lot of things that I was going to do over the Summer that I never did. Many of these things began with the letter S. I did other things instead, and I have plenty of regrets.

Here is one regret: On more than one occasion I thought about poems I know involving stars. I always remembered First World and The Song of Wandering Angus and Poema Veinte. There's this other poem I memorized in high school - A Song by Joseph Brodsky, and it's been bugging me for a while that there's one line of it that I couldn't remember. Last night I looked it up, and it's this: I wish you were here, dear, I wish you were here. I wish I knew no astronomy when stars appear, when the moon skims the water that sighs and shifts in its slumber. I wish it were still a quarter to dial your number. The one part I couldn't remember was I wish I knew no astronomy when stars appear. I really regret not having remembered that line because it's one of my favorites in the poem, and I could have added this to the poems I know about stars when thinking about those things. Also, who knows how many girls would have fallen in love with me had I remembered it? Seven or eight is the best estimate according to this site.

California

I feel that a blog post is in order, because I've moved to a new place. Some people would like updates, I'm sure. Tell them they're free to call me.

Here's something I haven't told anyone yet, though: near the library there's some kind of tree or plant or other botanical item with this terrible smell. At first I thought the older, very heavy-set man sitting on a bench there had been smoking pot. This turned out not to be the case. Either that, or he left a very lingering smell. He was a large man, so I guess it's more than possible that he would leave a lingering smell.

So one time I went up the canyon with some friends and there was a bonfire and we came home smelling like smoke. If we told you we'd met with some people who were smoking pot and that's what had scented all our clothing, we may or may not have been lying.

I think landscape designers and grounds crews and landscapers should be required to study plant odors.

I think green is a fine color for a room.


Sometimes I think, what if? That's a dangerous thing to think. I apologize to anyone who has been hurt by my thinking, what if?

Here's a statistic: AT UC Davis, on peak days, there are 20,000 to 30,000 bicycles on campus. Today is not a peak day.

Note 4

It's a dry place, my place of birth. So the rain at the airport when I landed was unexpected. But it seemed right. This land is, after all, a part of me, and I a part of it, I guess. When I look out of the small airplane window and see it streaked with rain as we taxi to our gate, I imagine sorrow, pain, memories not easily forgotten, a thousand memories too quickly remembered, Springs and Summers and silence, and I am not really surprised even in this dry place.

A Second Lovesong

So this baby goat loved
his mother very much.

"I love you, mother,
very much. May I climb
onto your back to be
near to you?"

So he would climb onto
his mother's soft back
and stand there for hours.

The view from up there
was incredible. He could
see into the next pen,
out across the yard,
dozens of other goats
who all gazed back up at
him in admiration.