It's midnight on the bay.

Steps off the a scraped March sky and sinks

Up into the blind Atlantic morning One small

Red dog jumping across the beach miles below

Like a freed shadow.

- Autobiography of Red ("Wings XII") by Anne Carson 

Today was a bright day, unthreatening weather, which feels like a rarity this summer in the midwest. I was almost expecting there to be some sort of heavy downpour of rain, but none to be found. The boys and I met up for a lunch at Red Robin, the hot spot for the protein depleted child within me and afterwards we took to some frisbee golfing, which contrary to what I might expect was actually rather good. Very good in fact. Though I found myself much less coordinated that I would think, it was actually a lot of fun. I look forward to more "frolfing" as C puts it, though I don't think I can wrap my mouth around those words to say them with any sort of dignity. 

I am inching my way closer to London and my trip to the Globe which is proving to be what will be the highlight of my summer. I have a few monologues in my back pocket just in case Henry or Jane L or Anna decide to throw me on the spot, which will probably not happen. What I think I am most pumped about is rehearsing and speaking on that stage, a stage I think is incredibly holy, an almost sacred place of worship. How many great Shakespearian actors would have poured their hearts out on that stage, I don't know. But there is much history to be found on that stage, the underlings biting at your toes, the London mob staring you down with a cynical eye, even the playwright himself hiding behind a pillar, praying to god that the play is received better than you have been rehearsing it. 

I have been reading a lot of poetry recently. Aside from making Poetry Magazine  and The New Yorker top bookmark items, I have been trekking through the high grasses of James Wright's midwestern pastorals, reading Anne Carson's epic poetry about Geryon in Autobiography of Red, even a little of Calvin and Hobbes for poetic flexibility. They say one can only write when one can read. Hence, I am doing both. Both reading poetry and writing it. I am also currently in the midst of wrapping up a play tentatively called "Teddy", a play I need to finish and send out to good readers before I leave for London. Writing "Teddy" has been difficult in that I have no idea if the premise is even interesting. I assume it is, because it is to me. But I do not know if the characters are believable, their actions justifiable, their wants recognizable. Writing for the stage is a COMPLETELY different animal than writing for the screen. One must be quite thorough about the usage of on stage time, the allotment of time for changes, the necessity for long scenes or short ones, the impossibility of translating the very subtle, the almost unseen, as being part of a major theme or idea. I am trying to write in an interesting style, a sort of Wes Anderson-esque tone, but it's certainly not colorful or dark enough, and the none of the characters or precocious. Okay, except maybe one. 

Itching to get out of St. Louis, to London, and then back to school where I have things I need to do and get accomplished. Whereas out here in Ballwin, it's a completely different animal. Time slows down the further you get from the center of all things. But the closer you are to the accretion disk, the faster you spin until you get sucked into the craziness of the cosmos.

I leave you with a poem, and it's perhaps one of the most beautiful, heart breaking poems I have read in some time. It's one James Wright's most famous poems - A Blessing. 

J

ust off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more,

They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.

I would like to the hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me

And nuzzled my left hand.

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate las the skin over a girl's wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom.

good night.