one amazing element of the lockdown is that we keep discovering nature around us.  today we saw a tree – some kind of african import – flowering like nobody’s business.  i can’t figure out how i’ve never seen it before – having passed it at least twice a week for the past 40 years.

Meanwhile, while the frumers are clinging to the synagogue and crowds in the street, the rest of the population seems just about ready to break through the lockdown rules and breathe a little. the police can’t keep the people in control. today we met some of our kids in the area of the local strip mall, thinking that since the stores and cafes were closed there would be no people. but the place was crowded. really crowded. yes, most people were masked and kept a distance, but there was no room for people to sit, so they wandered back and forth, drinking the coffee they had bought from the bakery, and relying on the news today that vitamin D might be able to reduce the contagion some. Even the old ladies who give advice were back in business, shouting out to our grandson to stay in the sun because it was good for him.

and then in the afternoon i met another poet in the park – most poets want to meet me because they think i know how to sell books. that shows how little they know about poetry. i thought i’d meet her and read some poems by Louise Gluck to her, but poets don’t always want to hear poems by other poets. they want to know how to be famous themselves. i also suffer from that sometimes.

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