SOMETIMES, I WISH MY MUSE WOULD JUST SHUT UP

Well, not really of course. But, gads, whenever I think I'm dry -- or whenever I just finished a BIG PROJECT and hope for a respite -- the fallen angels hitch up their skirts and pee on my illusions that Moi doesn't exist except to serve them.

Which is to say, blearily over coffee this morning at the kitchen table -- which is to say, with no prior intent to do so -- I finished "Chapter One" comprised of eight hay(na)ku poems of a new project:

OUR TUSCAN STORY:
A NOVEL IN HAY(NA)KU

My version, it seems, of a novel in verse. It's inspired partly by the latest memoir I began reading this morning, A Tuscan Childhood by Kinta Beevor. And this one, unlike my earlier attempts at the novel but using conventional prose, seems to write itself effortlessly...and never mind my sleep and the growing purple under my heavy-lidded eyes. Whatever -- bring it all on.

*****

Synchronicity -- I'm off to Alba for white truffle-hunting this October, so I'll even have a chance to do primary research. Yes, the gods are good to me ... and I hope always to deserve your sun...


We watched Fiore
slice mushrooms
delicately

then spread the
thin segments
on

a table or
wood planks
to

dry under the
sun. Afterwards
they

would be hung
in muslin
or

calico bags near
the kitchen
fireplace.

Back in London
each autumn
I

would receive a
bag of
dried

mushrooms. The last
one arrived
in

the autumn of
1939, shortly
after

the outbreak of war.