Yesterday was a lot of bus riding. And then to step off a bus onto 42d Street was rather a shock. In Harmony one forgets that Times Square exists. 

I passed 10 hours on the bus reading The Mill on the Floss and copying out random poems from Kenneth Rexroth's 100 Poems from the Chinese. I have some doubts about how accurate these translations might be, but I do enjoy knowing that a poem written before the Norman Conquest can be as swift and present-tense as a poem written in Maine last week. I would copy out an example for you, but once again I am trying to respect copyright. The Rexroth translations are from 1971, in a New Directions edition, if you're interested in looking for them. In addition to being quite helpful for poets, they are excellent fodder for teachers.

Today I am off to Manhattan for lunch with someone I haven't seen for 20 years. And then, I'm not sure. Possibly a botanical garden, possibly a museum, possibly some aimless wandering. . . . I'm feeling remarkably unfettered, which makes me realize how fettered I usually am.

I realize I haven't yet told you about the bus ride, so here are my written-on-the-bus notes:

The bus driver bites his nails, snatches at the top of his head, and now and again leans over to wildly shake out his left ear. More than once he mutters, “Friggin crap.” When the bus stalls out on the railroad tracks, he says, “Holy friggin crap.”

 Across the aisle from me sleeps a very fat woman. According to her tote bag, her name is “Leslye.” When she got on the bus, the driver had to push her up the stairs from behind. Meanwhile, she laughed merrily.

 The driver hasn’t said anything about friggin crap for five or ten miles. Maybe he feels better now that he has yelled at the Asian guy in the row behind me. “Stop talking on the phone, or you’re off this bus,” said the bus driver. “Somebody translate that for him.”

I eventually stopped taking notes, but bus and driver continued to behave badly. Fortunately we received a new mechanically sound bus in Boston. But it was also very crowded, and I had to sit behind the world's loudest kissers. They weren't exactly making out; it was more like frequent loud pecks, but each peck resembled a quick slurp of water going down a semi-clogged drain. This went on intermittently for 5 hours.