Okay. Got through Charlotte's very quiet class by talking a lot and waving my arms around. Am hoping this went over well. 

In other news, the sun is shining and I have nothing to do till 3:30 except to find an outlet so this computer doesn't sink into a coma.

I have not read one word of Adrienne Rich since yesterday. As a quick substitute, I will quote from "The Endicott Observer," which someone has abandoned on the table next to my chair: 

When I first started writing this column I was worried I wouldn't be able to come up with a topic every couple weeks. I mean I get annoyed a lot I thought but not enough to fill up a whole year's worth of columns.

More anon.

***

And anon has arrived. 

Having discovered an outlet and a bathroom, I feel that I have now adequately prepared myself for Adrienne Rich. The first poem I turn to is "The Ninth Symphony of Beethoven Understood at Last As a Sexual Message," dated 1972 and published in Diving into the Wreck.

Instantly, my reaction is: time to administer a poll. Therefore, go read this poem and then tell me if it resonates as Truth in a "maybe this didn't really happen but my heart believes it anyhow" kind of way. If you want to send me an email or a Facebook message instead of leaving an answer on the comment form, please do. I want all the answers I can get because don't you think it will be interesting to ponder the statistics? 

**

Noon, and the prerecorded bells of Endicott College are ringing out a muted and despairing version of "Stars and Stripes Forever." Meanwhile, I copy Adrienne Rich poems amid a gaggle of skinny blondes who are checking their cell phones. For some reason, the scene is beginning to feel sinister. Possibly I am gaining more sympathy for the word political as applied to poetry.  In any case, the poem I'm engaged on seems to have some good lines:

from Waking in the Dark

The thing that arrests me is

         how we are composed of molecules

        (he showed me the figure in the paving stones)

        arranged without our knowledge and consent

                    like the wirephoto composed

                    of millions of dots

         in which the man from Bangladesh

         walks starving

                                            on the front page

                                            knowing nothing about it

          which is his presence for the world

**

Have just been accosted by the librarian as if I were an honored guest. This is very flattering, and I hope I don't have any avocado sandwich fragments stuck in my teeth. He happened to accost me just as I was perusing the pamphlet I'd pulled out from between the cushions of my chair: "Getting What You Want from Relationships." By the way, "Your relationships can get better when you practice your relationship skills."