For J.K.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
a perfect line ruined by insincere overuse and glibly chiming abuse.

Woke early again, wishing that I could sleep somewhere else. Not in a different bed, but in a different head. Too many sour dreams and restless legs that kept me tossing and twisting in my sheets, sleep aids and all.

Whether from dreams or an accumulation of city-burdens, I came to the surface this morning heavily, with a weight of shame. I went out to the end of the yard, to a bench by the water, to wait for the sun and memorize a poem.

...Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.

I wanted to replace my thoughts with Keats'. But his words, slowly, slowly spoken in the hush of morning, did not reject but soothed them. They may not hold against the clamour of life's artifice tomorrow, and what I write now may not hold against the cynic's thoughts that later will fight me. But as long as I am outside and the sun is larger than my self-small mind, I will be full with these words.

Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

....