The poet James Merrill was born in NYC on this date in 1926 and died at the age of 69 in Tucson AZ. Get this: his dad was the Merrill of Merrill Lynch. He had a privileged youth but lived modestly as an adult, and set up a fund to assist writers and artists. He and his siblings renounced a good portion of Merrill’s estate so it went to charity.
This poem is by Cecilia Woloch. It’s called “On Faith” and appeared in today’s Writer’s Almanac.
How do people stay true to each other?
When I think of my parents all those years
in the unmade bed of their marriage, not ever
longing for anything else—or: no, they must
have longed; there must have been flickerings,
stray desires, nights she turned from him,
sleepless, and wept, nights he rose silently,
smoked in the dark, nights that nest of breath
and tangled limbs must have seemed
not enough. But it was. Or they just
held on. A gift, perhaps, I’ve tossed out,
having been always too willing to fly
to the next love, the next and the next, certain
nothing was really mine, certain nothing
would ever last. So faith hits me late, if at all;
faith that this latest love won’t end, or ends
in the shapeless sleep of death. But faith is hard.
When he turns his back to me now, I think:
disappear. I think: not what I want. I think
of my mother lying awake in those arms
that could crush her. That could have. Did not.
Cecilia is from Pittsburgh, 68, and may be a vampire. I say this because she went to college at Transylvania U. (It’s a private university in Lexington KY.)
Our photographer Phil was afraid of her and said he would only photograph her eyes. (Is that a vampire thing? I learned long ago not to ask Phil questions.)
Even those of us living under a rock are aware of Anora’s massive sweep at the Oscars last night: Best Picture, Director, Producer, and Actress. Four awards for one picture is a record. We are kvelling, especially since Director Sean Baker is a Jersey boy, born just up the road in Summit. And the beautiful Best Actress is a sistah! Mikey Madison’s last name is Rosberg and she’s Jewish. She’s also 26, vegan, single, and lives in LA. Phil described her as a Jewish Anne Hathaway. We can see it.
Headline from The Onion
Couple Forced To Sit Next To Dead Body On Plane For 4 Hours After Woman Dies Midflight
Funny-sounding words are always welcome, amirite? So I was happy to learn from CNN that the dust storm sweeping across the Southwest is called an haboob. It’s not just any old dust or sand storm that merits the name — it has to be especially intense. The term originally applied to the serious-shit sand storms of the Sudan, which is apparently the major league of sand storms, but was adopted for the U.S. Southwest in 1971 when all hell broke loose in ‘Zona.
Take a look. It’s like a tsunami, but with dust.
BTW, our friend Donna knew someone who was caught in the Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 that killed 230,000 people: one of the deadliest natural disasters in history. He was dragged out to sea but, incredibly, survived with only some damage to one arm. Several months later he was coming out to visit Donna and she asked us for ideas on what to get him as a gift. I suggested a hair dryer. (True story.)
We’re going to let The Cars send us off tonight with their song “Drive.” It relates to the puzzle, the theme answers for which incorporated the words, PARK, REVERSE, NEUTRAL, DRIVE, and LOW in an assortment of phrases.
“Who’s going to pay attention to your dreams?”
See you tomorrow!
The Wellington Files 