Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Three Beautiful Things 07/21/20: July Heat, Billy Collins and a Moving Letter, Cooling Off BONUS A Limerick by Stu

Tuesday morning's jazz: Lionel Hampton.

1.The weather started (continued?) to heat up today in Kellogg and I realized, again, my days of enjoying the lazy crazy hazy days of summer outside are long gone. Gone are the days at the city pool, playing sandlot baseball with neighborhood kids or organized baseball in Little League, Babe Ruth, and American Legion; gone are firecracker July days riding my bike around town; gone are the days of running through the sprinkler or, when it got dark, dragging plastic sheets and old mattresses and sleeping bags into the back yard and sleeping under the stars.

Now, the days heat up and Debbie and I try to keep the house cool.  I hydrate, enjoy the pleasures of listening to jazz music, working puzzles, catching up on some news, reading, thinking, remembering, imagining, talking with Debbie, laughing at Gibbs, holding him, and making the most of staying indoors.

2. Around 2:30, Billy Collins' daily (M-F) broadcast started on the Billy Collins Facebook page. Billy and his wife, Suzannah, were celebrating their first wedding anniversary and to mark the occasion, Suzannah, whom we normally hear as an unseen off-camera voice, took over Billy Collins' desk chair. She made me laugh as she read and showed us the decidedly unsentimental cards Billy Collins had given her. Better yet, she read a poem that she'd had published in the Florida Review, entitled "On Living with a Famous Poet".  I thought it was a knockout.

Billy Collins then resumed his place in the chair and he read the witty and sexy seduction poem, "The Flea" written by John Donne around 1590 (published posthumously in 1633). We listeners had been told about an hour earlier on the Billy Collins Facebook page that he'd be reading this poem in case we wanted to read it in advance.

I did.

I enjoyed being transported back to the U of Oregon and 1984-85 when I spent the school year preparing for a four hour written exam in Non-Shakespearean Renaissance Poetry and Prose. John Donne enthralled me back then and I'm happy to say the old John Donne magic lives on in me.  I not only enjoyed Billy Collins reading of the poem, but also enjoyed his story about when he first encountered John Donne as an eighteen year old college freshman and loved his explication of the "The Flea".  He talked a bit about the poem's structure and how, verse by verse, the speaker makes his witty, flea-based argument to the woman he's with that they really should join themselves in erotic union.

Billy Collins also read Robert Herrick's "Upon Julia's Clothes", another erotic poem from the English Renaissance and then he read two of his own poems, "Writing in the Afterlife" and "Litany", both gems.

After the end of the broadcast, I checked my email and discovered Kathleen H. had written me an astonishing and moving letter about her friendship with the poet Lucia Perillo. You might remember that when I wrote about Billy Collins' July 20th broadcast, I expressed delight that he read a poem by Lucia Perillo, a poet I'd never read before.

Well, it turns out that Kathleen and Lucia became friends over thirty years ago at St. Martin's College. Kathleen wrote in scintillating detail about her friendship with Lucia Perillo, about memorable times they spent together, and about her grief upon learning Lucia Perillo died in 2016.

I loved reading Kathleen's letter. Not only did I relish learning more about Kathleen and Lucia Perillo, I also thought about how listening to these Billy Collins broadcasts has, in just the past five days, significantly expanded my inner world and deepened connections between me and others. Both Bill Davie and Bridgit Lacy were among the virtual audience members today during the broadcast. I could feel their presence and delighted in knowing that these two longtime friends and I were enjoying this broadcast together.

3. The sun dropped out of sight. Darkness began to blanket Kellogg. Slowly, surely, as it does without fail every summer night, the Kellogg air began to cool and Debbie and I took Gibbs out on the deck and we enjoyed the relief of the temperature falling and I deepened my comfort by pouring myself gin and tonic, the perfect July evening cocktail. We talked aimlessly, wandering through a variety of things on our minds, with one thread tying everything together: it felt great to cool off.



Here's a limerick by Stu:




We should have said this long before.
After running onto fields and the floor.
Thanks to crowds and the bands,
And cheerleaders facing the stands.
You supported us no matter the score.

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