I have a friend who is terribly ill, who called me yesterday from the hospital and said, "I haven't eaten for nine days, and now I keep having fantasies about all the different kinds of wonderful food I could be eating." And then she laughed and told me nurses were peeking around the corner at her. She's so sick and at the same time she's so funny and alive; and today, while I was raking leaves and the sun was shining and my husband was splitting firewood and the wind was messing with my leaf piles, I kept thinking, "I'm alive, I'm alive." That sounds sappy, but it didn't feel that way. It was more like the feeling that rises up through the soles of my feet when I'm clinging to a pole on a moving subway train. Like "Here I am." 

from Soon

Joe Bolton

And no one will remember what it was

To try to live and love and make love live

In these times we belong to but call ours,

Near the end of what looked like forever.

And if you don't know the poems of Joe Bolton, you should.

Dinner tonight: hamburgers, homemade buns, refrigerator pickles, caramelized onions, autumn lettuce, red and yellow tomatoes, beer.

P.S. The soccer team lost its last game. My son cried, but he cheered up considerably when he opened his Red Sox ticket surprise. My older son and I are trying to decide what to do back here in central Maine while the others are off living the Fenway high life. Any thoughts? Going bowling and eating truck-stop corned beef hash are our best ideas so far.