February 25, 2009

Dolce mia vita sei

When English just isn't enough, Rachel:

Dolce mia vita sei,
lieto mio ben sarai....

February 22, 2009

Haven't You Heard

Haven't you heard my eyes already
Tell you what my tongue can not say,
That our eyes were made to be side by side
Looking at the world together when
They're not facing each other's looking in.

February 21, 2009

Happy Birthday, Rachel II

" ... living a life
I can't leave behind"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJ1c9ErCn7w

"I feel fine. I feel good.
I feel like I never should.
Whenever I feel this way
I just don't know what to say
Why can't we be together
Just like yesterday....

Yes, I admit to myself
That if I hurt someone else
Then we'll never see
Just what we're meant to be."

Still, I love you, Rachel, and

"Everytime I see you falling
I get down on my knees and pray
Waiting for that final moment
You say the words that I can't say."

Happy Birthday, Rachel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0KlAHd7dGI&feature=related

Put to this in another tab and then come back and read this post
while you listen.

It's Strauss's Ein Heldenleben, and I heard this section from about
2:15 on in the Fritz Reiner CSO recording tonight on Exploring Music,
and it made me think of you, because I know you like it. (Of
course I was already thinking of you and thinking of your birthday.)
Still hearing it, I hoped you were listening, and we were enjoying it
together. You are a heroine to me, because you have opened your
life to beauty and have refused to just settle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT3Q_BIIRJM&feature=related


Happy Birthday, Rachel, I love you.
I could never give you anything that compares
with the joy and new life you have given me.

February 14, 2009

Not a Day Goes By

Happy Valentine's Day, Rachel.
This song says it all, and then more
than I'd like to be honest.

I'd never add the bit about "paying."
I'm just grateful for every moment I've
had with you. It's all good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kMlQgyz834&feature=related

February 13, 2009

Fragments

What are these fragments
Of thought dropped into words
On a page?
Are they poems?
No, they're the working notes
Of an otherwise quiet passion.

February 10, 2009

Springlike

Today felt like a spring day,
Spring so wonderful outside you;
But so painful inside me, Rachel
Without you.
Without you, Rachel,
Part of me wishes it were always winter.

February 9, 2009

Dream A Little Dream with Yoooouu!

I'd love to feel
Your hand touching mine
And hear you tell me why
I must keep working on

And I'd keep you working on too. This song makes me dream
of you, Rachel. The whole idea of working and resting together
as the heart of a loving relationship. It's all I wish I could have
with you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1qIW1dLo4w&feature=related


I'd do anything to keep you singing, and
I know you'd do the same for my art.

I'd give this world
Just to dream
A little dream with you
On our bed of ....



February 8, 2009

Romantic Hour, Rachel

The Romantic Hour, Rachel,
Saturday Night set aside for
Thoughts of you.

The Reality Hour, Rachel,
Set aside for what I find most real:
Thoughts of you.

The Rachel Hour, Rachel,
What else do I have but
Thoughts of you.

Thoughts of you. Happy Time,
Saturday night alone set aside for
Thoughts of you,

But next Saturday is Valentine's Day,
Look out! How happy will it prove -
My intense aloneness with
Thoughts of you.


PS: I have to admit I fear Valentine's Day
this year. Just have to get through it,
I guess. Sunday Morning has never looked
so good.

One of my friend Hurt's strange little found photoworks
deals with Valentine's Day. He has written
in pencil these generous words over the image of
a joyful dancer, and I try to offer them in the same
spirit of generosity to you, my beloved:

It's Unfair AND Stupid
by Hurt McDermott

It's unfair & stupid
That manufactured holidays
Should have such a hold
Over us, but they do.

The more powerful the imagination,
The more vulnerable.

Oh be happy!
Be Happy on Valentine's Day
Without me.



February 7, 2009

Double Bind

Oh, Rachel, do you realize already I'm in love
with you. If I leave Leah, I'm afraid knowing that
I do love you will make you think I left her for you,
but if things were okay with Leah I wouldn't leave,
no matter what I felt for anyone else, even you.

And if I still saw you every weekday, I wouldn't
leave her either, because your being around made
our life bearable.

But it's becoming unbearable. It's true I'm in a
double bind. If I still loved Leah, I could deal
with my feelings for you, but Leah is angry
and disappointed with me to the point I can't take
it anymore. I was at this point when you came,
but you made me so happy, I could ignore it.

If I were stronger, I'd be the person Leah
wants me to be, which means giving up being
an artist. But I'll be an artist until I die.

If I hadn't met you, I could deal with the pressure
to leave Leah, and I won't leave her; but you are
there to focus my mind in all sorts of ways I
would not have chosen. Oh thank God for you,
Rachel, you have saved me, even if in a very
painful way.

February 1, 2009

Rachel and Poetry

One day back when Rachel was helping me get
better, and we were out walking on a cold day,
I quoted her the last stanza of this poem
by Yeats:

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

I had told Rachel the story of how Yeats loved
Maude Gonne and wrote her this poem,
and Rachel did not find the situation romantic.
She found it a cruelly devastating poem.
And of course I realized she was right. I had
been very influenced by my sophomore high
school English teacher - God bless you, Mrs.
Catran - who said to us, "How could any
woman reject someone who could write such
beautiful poetry." But Rachel saw it for
what it was a revenge fantasy of the rejected.

Still, Rachel, I think you could have a little
pity for those of us who love with no hope of
return. Accepting reality, we still want to think
there is something inside our beloved which
will always believe us to be somehow uniquely
special, if not the one.

The alternative is nothing less than unbearable.