We were in Colorado, and there were lots of cows. The sign in the background reads: "Eat Beef Keep Slim."

(from) The White Knight's Song (this part precedes the poem's end, which is just below)

I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I thanked him much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for his wish that he
Might drink my noble health.

-Lewis Carroll

A medley of popular song

mp3 "Imagine...Walk on the Wild Side (3:00, 2.8 MB)"

Tunes are Lennon's "Imagine" and Reed's "Walk."
Words are the president's.
Very ha.

"Sunday Bloody Sunday (3:09, 2.9 MB)"

Similar to the above. Also ha.

My brothers and I were at the beach, and we were very cool.

(from) The White Knight's Song

And now, if i'er by chance I put
My fingers into glue,
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
A very heavy weight,
I weep, for it reminds me so
Of that old man I used to know-
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow,
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo-
That summer evening long ago,
A-sitting on a gate.

-Lewis Carroll

I was in New York, and my brothers visited.

The Rain

All night the sound had
come back again,
and again falls
this quiet, persistent rain.

What am I to myself
that must be remembered,
insisted upon,
so often? Is it

that never the ease,
even the hardness,
of rain falling
will have for me

something other than this,
something not so insistent-
am I to be locked in this
final uneasiness.

Love, if you love me,
like next to me.
Be for me, like rain,
the getting out

of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-
lust of intentional indifference.
Be wet
with a decent happiness.

-Robert Creeley

I was in Ukraine, and for the first three months I had a host family. Her name was- is- Olga.

Lament

Someone is dead.
Even the trees know it,
those poor old dancers who come on lewdly,
all pea-green scarfs and spine pole.
I think ...
I think I could have stopped it,
if I'd been as firm as a nurse
or noticed the neck of the driver
as he cheated the crosstown lights;
or later in the evening,
if I'd held my napkin over my mouth.
I think I could ...
if I'd been different, or wise, or calm,
I think I could have charmed the table,
the stained dish or the hand of the dealer.
But it's done.
It's all used up.
There's no doubt about the trees
spreading their thin feet into the dry grass.
A canada goose rides up,
spread out like a gray suede shirt,
honking his nose into the March wind.
In the entryway a cat breathes calmly
into her watery blue fur.
The supper dishes are over and the sun
unaccustomed to anything else
goes all the way down.

-Anne Sexton

I was in Ukraine, and it was my birthday.

I live in that big building just to the left of the telephone pole. From where I stood to take this picture today, I could hear my fire alarm. The alarm is very loud. I'm told that- by law- it must be tested twice every semester. Today was a test day. At the time of the test, it was raining. It is important that I find a new apartment.

Hay for the Horses

He had driven half the night
From far down San Joaquin
Through Mariposa, up the
Dangerous Mountain roads,
And pulled in at eight a.m.
With his big truckload of hay
       behind the barn.
With winch and ropes and hooks
We stacked the bales up clean
To splintery redwood rafters
High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa
Whirling through shingle-cracks of light,
Itch of haydust in the
       sweaty shirt and shoes.
At lunchtime under Black oak
Out in the hot corral,
---The old mare nosing lunchpails,
Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds---
"I'm sixty-eight" he said,
"I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
I thought, that day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that's just what
I've gone and done."

-Gary Snyder

Ma's farm.

Poem

Like musical instruments
Abandoned in a field
The parts of your feelings

Are starting to know a quiet
The pure conversions of your
Life into art seems destined

Never to occur
You don't mind
You feel spiritual and alert

As the air must feel
Turning into sky aloft and blue
You feel like

You'll never feel like touching anything or anyone
Again
And then you do

-Tom Clark

Another Fellowship

Surprised to find today that I'd been awarded another fellowship. I'm shocked and, you know, awed that I'll be able to afford to work for the Public Defender. Because they won't pay me.

Ma's farm.

Why I am not a Painter

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

For instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
'Sit down and have drink' he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. 'You have SARDINES in it.'
'Yes, it needed something there.'
'Oh,' I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is finished. 'Where's SARDINES?'
All that's left is just
letters, 'It was too much,' Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

--Frank O'Hara

A concern of mine

was that I might not be able to afford to work for free (for the AK Public Defender office) this summer. Today, however, I received a letter informing me that I had won a fellowship. I hadn't expected that this particular fellowship- even if I won it- would be enough to cover things. But the letter says I've been awarded enough to pay my expenses this summer.

I keep re-opening the letter, and looking at the same part of the letter. It's so much fun.

Terence, I lost your email address

but here's a link to the AK ferry schedule, and a link to the fares.

The Best Thing in the World

What's the best thing in the world?

June-rose, by May-dew impearled;
Sweet south-wind, that means no rain;
Truth, not cruel to a friend;
Pleasure, not in haste to end;
Beauty, not self-decked and curled
Till its pride is over-plain;
Love, when, so, you're loved again.
What's the best thing in the world?
--Something out of it, I think.

-Elizabeth Barrett Browning

the view from here, during a storm tonight

6 years ago, in WA

Easily the best

________ I've ever heard is on a CD- linked above- by Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers.

This week

Nevermind the computer.
The Pharcyde

A first, since never seen blimp from here before.

Problem solved I think

Turned out it was not the operating system, but the hard drive that was the problem. Yesterday, IBM said it would take 4 or more business days to get another hard drive to me (fortunately, I'm still covered by warranty), but this morning I was surprised to get, like, a hard drive delivered. So, IBM is good for customer service.

K.O.

My laptop computer will be out-of-commission until recovery discs arrive from IBM. So I must work on public computers, none of which are in my apartment. I miss my laptop computer. Also, I miss messenger.

Problem started on Saturday. Was bothered over having hurt my foot. So, thought I'd watch my favorite movie. Watched for a bit, went away, returned to find computer unresponsive. I mean, dead.

Knoxville on April 14, a Thursday

Constitutional Law

Loving v. VA, 388 US 1 (1967)
"There can be no question but that Virginia's miscegenation statutes rest solely upon distinctions drawn according to race."

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, 402 US 1 (1971)
"state-enforced separation of races in public schools is discrimination that violates the Equal Protection Clause. The remedy was to dismantle dual school systems."

Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 US 70 (1995)
"A district court seeking to remedy an intradistrict violation that has not 'directly caused' significant inter-district efffects ... exceeds its remedial authority if it orders a remedy with an interdistrict purpose."

Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena, 515 US 200 (1995)
"any person, of whatever race, has the right to demand that any governmental actor subject to the Constitution justify any racial classification subjecting that person to unequal treatment under thhe strictest judicial scrutiny..."

So, there.

In re Sinclair 870 F.2d 1340

read for Legislation class

"Legislative history then may help a court discover but may not change the original meaning."

So, there.

Knoxville on Saturday night

The New York Times > New York Region > Videos Challenge Accounts of Convention Unrest

This sort of thing: why I wanted to be a lawyer.

"A sprawling body of visual evidence, made possible by inexpensive, lightweight cameras in the hands of private citizens, volunteer observers and the police themselves, has shifted the debate over precisely what happened on the streets during the week of the convention."

Flight provided by Southwings

This is the appearance of the plane. That is the pilot.

Never opened a window in an airplane before.

Zeb Mountain's top is being removed. I took this picture today. Flight provided by Southwings.

The view from here, this evening

Where I'll be this summer

Palmer, Alaska

via Google Maps

Google Maps - 37916

where I live, via Google satellite

Palmer, Alaska Public Defender

Just found out that rather than there being just one , there will be three other law students to work with me this summer at the Palmer PD. And I have their email addresses. Will be interesting to find out who these people are. Might even be able to work with them regarding housing, which (other than funding) is my concern right now.

The Soldiering Life

This site has more songs by the Decemberists.