From October of 1997: my first formal observation in the School District of Philadelphia. Will post a picture of my room in two weeks to see if I’ve gotten any better. (See the header of the blog for my current north wall.) If I ever get this book published, this photo will be at the introduction to the first chapter.
07202026, S.49th Street by Bartram’s Garden entrance, 7:20 AM.
Starting on Sonnet 27. Note to self: Why don’t you stop and speak clearly?
Praying this light remains. It will make my walk to school much less dangerous.
Neighbors at 46th and Hazel have this brilliant bit of landscaping by the side of their house. It has become a sort of watering hole.
Potential next poems:
A Song on the End of the World by Czelaw Milosz (I have taught this one, maybe a bit easier?)
An Arundel Tomb by Philip Larkin
Hitherto by Matthew Dickman
Backyard in the smoke.
47th and Chester
47th and Baltimore
The air quality this morning promises to be even worse.
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus’d to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
And moan th’ expense of many a vanish’d sight;
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor’d, and sorrows end.
