Cat 'n' Mouse

Came across this old gem, clipped from that issue, the other day. So good.

End of Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley"

An old-fashioned copy with a fine red face and a frosty blue eye leaned in toward me. "What's the matter with you, Mac, drunk?" he asked. "Officer, I've driven this thing all over the country--mountains, plains, deserts. And now I'm back in my own town, where I live--and I'm lost." He grinned happily. "Think nothing of it, Mac," he said. "I got lost in Brooklyn only Saturday. Now where is it you were wanting to go?" And that's how the traveller came home again.

Walking Across the Atlantic

I wait for the holiday crowd to clear the beach
before stepping onto the first wave.

Soon I am walking across the Atlantic
thinking about Spain,
checking for whales, waterspouts.

I feel the water holding up my shifting weight.
Tonight I will sleep on its rocking surface.

But for now I try to imagine what
this must look like to the fish below,
the bottoms of my feet appearing, disappearing. 

--Billy Collins

From Jung's "Memories, Dreams, Reflections"

After the illness a fruitful period of work began for me. A good many of my principal works were written only then. The insight I had had, or the vision of the end of all things, gave me the courage to undertake new formulations. I no longer attempted to put across my own opinion, but surrendered myself to the current of my thoughts. Thus one problem after the other revealed itself to me and took shape.

A Brief for the Defense

RIP, Jack Gilbert.

Sonnetesque

I love its smallness: as though our whole town

were a picture postcard and our feelings

were on vacation: ourselves in mini-

ature, shopping at tiny sales, buying

the newspapers--small and pale and square

as sugar cubes--at the fragile, little curb.

The way the streetlight is really a table

lamp where now we sit and where real

night, (which is very tall and black and

at our backs), where for a moment

the night is forced to bend down and look

through these tiny windows, forced to come

closer and put its hand on our shoulder

and stoop over the book to read the fine print.

--Lynn Emanuel