A friend replies, number 13

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

Besides having failed to have a family or maintain a
love relationship?...A day at work with no chocolate.


Where would you like to live?

At the edge of a lake bordered by trees, where there
is moss, where I can hear the croaking of frogs at
night.


What is your idea of earthly happiness?

That moment when, in the midst of a difficult
conversation, you and your conversational partner
begin to understand each other, when the fear
dissipates and the empathy rises. (That and a swim in
the above lake.)

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?

Sloth, narcissism.


Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?

They are rarely heroes, but I always appreciate Haruki
Murakami’s protagonists, they’re so lost.


Who are your favorite characters in history?

Growing up I had a crush on Albert Einstein, mostly
because his intelligence was questioned when he was
young. It relieved me to know that someone so
brilliant could be thought to be mentally deficient.
Also, there was a soldier during the Bosnian war who
was ordered to shoot a group of civilians standing
over a ditch. When he questioned the order he was
told that he didn’t have to shoot them if he didn’t
want, instead he could put his gun down & go stand by
them. He did so, and he was killed.


Who are your favorite heroines in real life?

Maybe Marian Wright Edelman. Maybe I have to think
about this one more.


Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?

Easily Karana, Island of the Blue Dolphins.


Your favorite painter?

Stanley Spencer, (not the religious or worker
stuff...mostly the nudes & self portraits). But I am
loving Basquiat these days.

Your favorite musician?

Probably Ani DiFranco, yeah, I know. But then, I can
always listen to The Band, & Art Pepper, too, & then
there’s that Les McCann/ Eddie Harris album.


The quality you most admire in a man?

Self-knowledge, compassion.


The quality you most admire in a woman?

Self-knowledge, compassion.


Your favorite virtue?

Virtues are overrated, even the word “virtuous”
irritates me.


Your favorite occupation?

I suppose artist, of any sort.


Who would you have liked to be?

Myself, but much better.

France

Late next month I will be in France for nine days, staying in Paris's 5th arrondissement, a few blocks south of the Seine, quite close to the city's leading educational institutions. To prepare for my trip I have been reading weather reports, reading "La misere du monde," watching French movies, and worrying about the exchange rate.

Poem 21

Spliffing and berting the bowl of my swim,
Loose hair a pinwheel of radiant cream,
I'm as big as Tony Alba and Vincent van Gogh
When I surge from the coping and
Burst in the flow.

Poem 20

The moon hides her face in my notebook
And I am French, small, suffering.

Poem 19

On the rocks in the water the dipper
bobs and plunges and feeds
under the bridge by the road

Under me a ball of granite
and around me the stream
and the sound of the water

The bird goes on the stream
goes on the road goes on and on