Notes from Ann Arbor

Redbud

There were:

luques          grilled shrimp        manchego cheese

poetry           Riesling               The Kinks

couscous      Absinthe*             Beethoven

art by Joe Brainard     yellow tulips       tiny purple flowers

trees in blossom        scent of ginger, scent of purple        tiny portrait of Jim Carroll

Extraordinary Machine       omelets         fresh parsley, oregano

Red Renunculous          Redbud, Crabapple, Dogwood         Spider Chrysanthemum

Arvo Part        "In the Sprintime of His Voodoo"     peppermint & lavender soaps

Oysters!          Pelegrino         blackberries, passionfruit          tiny photo of an angel

"love the one you're with"        earrings made of crushed Roman glass

"you go back Jack/                do it again/                   we're turning round and round..."

people of all nationalities        many flashing cameras (Andrea's med-school graduation)

and finally there was Rilke:

XXI

Spring is back.  The earth

is like a child, the poem white

much, o much.....for the trouble

of long learning, she wins the prize.

Her teacher was strict.  We liked

the white in the beard of the old man.

Now, when we ask what the green

and the blue mean, she knows, she knows!

Earth, you lucky one, play

with the children.  We want to

catch you, happy earth. 

The happiest succeeds.

O, what her teacher taught her

and what stands in roots and

long difficult stems:  she sings it, she sings!

*Absinthe is now legal in two places in the United States:  Ann Arbor and California.