Last night, on the way home from a soccer game, my car overheated and was eventually dragged away by the owner of Right Hook Towing, who turned out to be a one-armed man wearing Tevas. Ask my son: I am not making this up. Meanwhile, small children on bicycles circled up and down their driveway, delighted with the spectacle, and Paul and I stood on the side of the road in the growing dark, hoping that Tom would be able to find us in the gloom.

All of this is preface to the fact that, this morning, I don't feel particularly Rilke-esque, so anything I say about your comments on yesterday's post is liable to be clunky and obvious. I will remark, however, that, like Amy, I spent a great deal of time with his idea of difficult. As a person whose life has, in large part, been stitched together with solitude, I felt a kinship with him in these passages. Solitude is not easy or fun or even productive. It is difficult, but at the same time that loneliness forces me into converse with myself, and that's where the poems come from.

If I were writing any poems. If I hadn't been awake all night worrying about car repairs and a job interview. If I hadn't been leading my Kappus life. Therein lies the rub.