Valentine Sunday in San Miguel, sort of a lot going on, stopped for a beer with M. Night before big fiesta R. threw at Longhorn Barbecue, lots of food and drink. Breakfast near the Jardin, dinner outside M's house with pina coladas and salad. World continues even in midst of events that tear at the heart. Haiti, Congo, deaths of friends. Still, there is a spacious sense of life's possibilities and even for the so-called leadership of the world. Have been thinking of developing a theater project, maybe Beckett's Endgame. We shall see. Have been spending time with a poetry book by Jack Gilbert who I had never read. Here's one of his:

A CLOSE CALL

Dusk and the sea is thus and so. The cat

from two fields away crossing through the grapes.

It is so quiet I can hear the air

in the canebrake. The blond wheat darkens.

The glaze is gone from the bay and the heat lets go.

They have not lit the lamp at the other farm yet

and all at once I feel lonely. What a surprise.

But the air stills, the heat comes back

and I think I am all right again.

from Refusing Heaven

Jack Gilbert