Remembering You Through William Carlos Williams, Part Two

You understand
I had to meet you
after the event
And have still to meet you….
I risked what I had to do,
therefore to prove
that we love each other
while my very bones sweated
that I could not cry out to you
in the act….

(William Carlos Williams, from Asphodel, That Greeny Flower)

According to Harvey, it was love at first sight. According to me, it was no way on first impression.

"After the event"—a Gladys Swan fiction reading held at Murray State--there was a reception at the home of my poetry professor, Richard Speakes. Almost everyone in attendance at the reading was there—professors, creative writing students--all very literary. I was there with my new friend Kim Pierce. We were dressed to the nines—well, actually to the Eighties. I was wearing a burgundy dress with a leather waist (anyone remember the brand Moonbeams?), and my best garnet necklace and earrings. Kim was wearing a beautiful black lace and velvet outfit.

Enter the people who didn’t attend the reading but who’d heard there was free wine: Art majors. They too were wearing their best, outlandish costumes after then-popular Boy George. Simply Red. Cyndi Lauper. Madonna.

I had wandered into the kitchen and leaned against a butcher block, feeling very overwhelmed by the chatter, when I heard a voice. I turned in its direction.

Do you know what that is? Here’s a guy with Stray Cats Hair, a wife-beater shirt, jeans ripped to shreds and held together with safety pins over red thermal underwear. And topping off this ensemble—a man’s paisley bathrobe. A bathrobe. His artist’s finger pointed toward a corner of the kitchen.

I believe it’s a woodstove. Please excuse me.

Gentle reader, it was a woodstove, but that wasn’t what Harvey wanted to show me. It was a biscuit oven, a particular feature of certain woodstoves--something rounded and interesting and something I didn’t know. Harvey loved the details of objects and pointed out the particularities. I didn't care to know any details about him. I wasn’t interested in talking to a guy in nightwear. And I didn’t. I snubbed him completely. I did, however, see his sketchbooks later that evening, and I fell in love with his drawings. He wasn’t the one showing it off, so I didn’t realize this was the work of “bathrobe boy.”

Harvey told my friend Kim later that I was the most intriguing-looking person he’d ever met. I told Kim, So what?

He also told Kim he was going to marry me. Thankfully she didn’t pass this information on to me, or I might never have returned to Murray.

I didn’t talk to Harvey again until a few months later, when I had car trouble, a car wreck in my ’64 Chevy Impala that led to a concussion. Harvey rescued me. He waited with me at my parents’ house until my mother came home from work. He held my hand. He claimed he asked me something. I have little memory of that afternoon and no memory of any question.

Harvey went home to Murray and broke up with his girlfriend. He took all the money from his savings account and bought a pair of corduroy jeans without holes in them. He bought a dozen red roses. He filled the tank of his big-as-a-whale Ford LTD.

He came back to Mayfield the next day, insisting that we had a date. Despite my total lack of recall, I went out with him. There was a blizzard, so all we did was eat lasagna (he ate all of his and half of mine), drink coffee at an all-night diner, and talk. At my house, we watched a black-and-white movie starring Sidney Poitier until it, too, turned to snow.

I walked Harvey to the door. He said, I’d kiss you but I have a cold. I thought he was being dismissive, and it ticked me off. I said, I'll risk it, and kissed him good night at about half Mach. He staggered outside, then drove away. He wrecked his LTD on the way home. (Never underestimate a challenge from Harvey. Never bet against my kissing superpowers, either).

Three months later, we were married. I blame it on temporary brain damage. Harvey wrote it was the fates colliding. I think we were both right.

Now my bones cry out for him. Bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh.

I will meet you again.

++++++++

Here’s a photo from the balloon release at Carr Elementary in Fulton.

"The Difference Between Lawful and Awful Is a Right Angle."

This is my hometown. If you go to the link for this article, you'll see the faces of good people. I know most of them. We greet one another at the local farmer's market. We bump buggies at Wal-Mart. Many of them sing hymns of praise and peace at the church we attend. I hear their love of God in their voices and see the joy on their faces as they worship. These are kind, loving, and supportive people, bringing my family fried chicken and casseroles, friendship and prayers, when Harvey died. I love these people in the photograph. One of them has been my friend since 5th grade.

I'd like to believe that they so love their local churches and their country's Bill of Rights that they were all there to see that freedom of worship matters, that the parking variances that are in place for other local churches would be extended to Somalians who wished to exercise their rights to worship.

I'd like to believe in my city council's initial decision, which supported the Bill of Rights and the Civil Rights legislation detailed below.

I'd like to believe that this decision by the City Council is only about a parking variance decision. A car driving by yelling "Get 'em out of here!" is something else entirely. A declaration to protest wherever the mosque may be established in the future is something else entirely.

I'd also like to believe that I'm a good citizen of my community. I'm not. As a local resident, I was so ill informed that I didn't even know a second meeting had been called. I didn't attend the meeting or call a council member to voice my thoughts. I didn't even know about it.

But I do know this: Where there is hatred, let there be love.

As a local Christian, I wasn't there to mention the two great commandments that we as followers of Christ have been given:

1. To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength.
2. To love your neighbor as yourself.

Our neighbors are the beauty shop owner who's concerned about her elderly customers, the florist who's worried about his customers' access to his business, and the Somalian who wants to enjoy the religious liberties that make America admired throughout the world.

We have to love all our neighbors, not just the ones who look like us or think like us or worship like us. We have to listen to them.

Where there is hatred, let there be love.

As a local Christian, I wasn't there to mention Jesus' position on the relationship between government and the church. "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's." (Read the actual Title 42 legislation below the second bar).

I believe in the teachings of Christ. I believe in our Constitution and civil rights laws. I believe that we all need prayerfully to consider this decision and our subsequent actions, to sow peace and love instead of division. I believe that everyone at that meeting has a right to his or her opinion, and I know that everyone at that meeting, from councilman to church-goer to chair-warmer, understands liberty and justice for all, which has been in the Pledge of Allegiance since its inception.

I know what Harvey would have thought. As my husband, and according to our religious beliefs (the ones we've chosen for ourselves), he was the spiritual leader of our household. Harvey loved Jesus. He loved America, too--its freedoms, its open arms, its innovations and adaptability. He would have supported the Somalians' right to worship in Mayfield. He would have sung these lyrics, from one of his favorite songs: If I have not charity, if love doesn't flow from me, I am nothing. He would have gotten mad.

I'm not mad. I'm saddened and ashamed of myself for my ignorance and solipsism.

And I'm praying: For forgiveness for myself for being inert during this process, for understanding of other viewpoints, for peace and comfort, for the members of our community.

And I'm glad that my prayer is legal. And I'm glad that no group is telling me how to pray. And I'm glad that there's a God who hears my prayer and offers me forgiveness, who sends me peace.

Where there is hatred, let there be love.

============================================

Kentucky: Crowd Cheers as Mosque Voted Down by City Government

Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) supports our universal human rights of freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, and freedom of worship for ALL people — without exception.

In Western Kentucky, a Mayfield city government board reversed an earlier decision and voted down a request on August 24, 2010, to build a new mosque, as a crowd of 250 individuals “cheered,” according to the Paducah Sun and WPSD-TV. In a 30 minute meeting on the issue, a crowd that “packed into the hearing” room prevented supporters of the planned mosque in Kentucky from even getting into the hearing room to speak. Kentucky residents at the hearing told the city government board that they did not want Muslims worshipping there in Mayfield, although the city government board said that it made its decision based on parking issues.

According to WPSD-TV news, “religion dominated the meeting.” If the Mayfield area Muslims chose to seek to build a mosque in another part of Mayfield, according to WPSD-TV reporter Lauren Adams, “as for the hundreds of people who showed up here today, they told me they are ready to come back here and fight this all over again, so it really seems that parking is not the issue.” On August 23, 2010, WPSD reported that “Early Monday morning, a car drives by the proposed site of a Muslim mosque and shouts, ‘Get ‘em out of here.’”

The Mayfield City Planner Brad Rodgers says the Mayfield area Muslims have 30 days to appeal the decision.

WPSD-TV reported that “A motion was made to deny the request and passed unanimously. Loud cheers erupted and Commissioner Richard Wright said later, ‘We clearly made the right decision.’” Richard Wright said it was not a first amendment issues, but a matter of parking.

WPSD-TV also reported the comments of one businessman Dick Conner, owner of Mayfield Florist and Greenhouse: “I don’t want to keep them from worshiping, I just don’t want them there.”

Previously, on August 20, 2010, WKMS reported that the Mayfield city government had previously approved the mosque, before Dick Conner and others objected to the city government ruling. WKMS stated that “Dick Conner says he’s partly responsible for bringing the mosque issue to the public eye. Conner says the zoning board originally ruled on the permit in a meeting two weeks ago.” Dick Conner told WKMS that “The public was not invited to that meeting, which they should have been. And the thing passed to where they could put it in. Well, I told them I’d just stop paying taxes too, because they don’t pay taxes, and then the mayor came over the next day and told me that meeting had been nullified.” WKMS reported on August 20 that “City Planner Brad Rodgers says officials erred in not allowing Conner and another person to make comment at the previous meeting. Rodgers says to his knowledge, the Somalis do pay taxes. Conner says he will be at the zoning board meeting Tuesday, and he expects others that support his position to come too.”

After pressure from Mayfield, Kentucky residents, the Mayfield Board of Zoning Adjustment held a public hearing where the the city government apparently reversed its decision and denied the zoning request to allow the mosque. Previous permits have been issued for churches in the area.

During the August 24, 2010 public hearing, however, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal, “No one representing the mosque was in the meeting room — which was packed to overflowing — to discuss the project.” WPSD-TV’s video report showed that attendees were given a “red card” to allow them in the meeting for crowd control. None of the mosque supporters apparently were given such a card.

WPSD-TV reported that “While comments were heard from neighbors and business owners, the Muslims who had petitioned did not have an opportunity. Turns out, the petitioners were turned away because the meeting was so crowded. Overflow crowds nearing 100 were allowed in the hallway and outside City Hall, but the group of Muslims simply returned home.” Mayfield Board of Zoning Adjustment Commissioner Richard Wright reportedly told WPSD-TV that it was unfortunate that the mosque supporters were not available.

A local Muslim family, the Choudhurys, expressed shock at the Mayfield Board’s decision, one of which was “ashamed” of Mayfield in that decision.

Many Facebook readers provided comments on the story on the WPSD Facebook page.

WPSD also provided a video link online about the news report.

The Louisville Courier-Journal reports the American Civil Liberties Union is investigating the matter, and was quoted as being concerned about “anti-religious sentiments voiced by members of the public immediately prior to the committee’s decision.”

WKMS reported that “First United Methodist Church pastor Joe Hansen says he’s had several people come to him concerned about the Somalis and the mosque. ‘I think the feeling a lot of people in Mayfield have is they were just sort of brought to town and . . . here they are. I think it’s been kind of a surprise to people. And we don’t know how to deal with it.’”

Jeff Keith, youth pastor at the First Baptist Church in Mayfield, told the Louisville Courier-Journal that some residents may be impacted by the debate over the 51 Park Place Islamic Center in New York City.

The same day as the Mayfield, Kentucky Board of Zoning Adjustment denied the application for a Muslim mosque for Somali Muslims in the area, WKMS reported that Muslim Yusuf Hassan was arrested and accused of “kidnapping” a girl. Hassan was identified out of a line-up. Hassan’s lawyer states that he is completely innocent and views the arrest’s timing “highly suspicious.”

Mayfield, Kentucky maintains a Confederate memorial on its courthouse steps, and during the Civil War, was very supportive of the Confederate States of America. Mayfield, Kentucky was also the site of the 1896 “race war” during the Christmas season, which resulted in the killing of Will Suett, an 18-year old black American traveling home to spend Christmas with his family, as well as burning down four homes, and the lynching of a black American Jim Stone.
============================================

For those who are unaware, here is the full text of United States law, Title 42, Chapter 21C, according to the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division.

http://www.justice.gov/crt/housing/housing_rluipa2.php

From the U.S. Code Online via GPO Access
[wais.access.gpo.gov]
[Laws in effect as of January 24, 2002]
[Document not affected by Public Laws enacted between
January 24, 2002 and December 19, 2002]
[CITE: 42USC2000cc]
TITLE 42–THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE
CHAPTER 21C–PROTECTION OF RELIGIOUS EXERCISE IN LAND USE AND BY INSTITUTIONALIZED PERSONS

§2000cc. Protection of land use as religious exercise

(a) Substantial burdens
(1) General rule

No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that imposes a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person, including a religious assembly or institution, unless the government demonstrates that imposition of the burden on that person, assembly, or institution—

(A) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and

(B) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

(2) Scope of application

This subsection applies in any case in which—

(A) the substantial burden is imposed in a program or activity that receives Federal financial assistance, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability;

(B) the substantial burden affects, or removal of that substantial burden would affect, commerce with foreign nations, among the several States, or with Indian tribes, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability; or

(C) the substantial burden is imposed in the implementation of a land use regulation or system of land use regulations, under which a government makes, or has in place formal or informal procedures or practices that permit the government to make, individualized assessments of the proposed uses for the property involved.

(b) Discrimination and exclusion
(1) Equal terms
No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that treats a religious assembly or institution on less than equal terms with a nonreligious assembly or institution.

(2) Nondiscrimination
No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation that discriminates against any assembly or institution on the basis of religion or religious denomination.

(3) Exclusions and limits

No government shall impose or implement a land use regulation that—
(A) totally excludes religious assemblies from a jurisdiction; or

(B) unreasonably limits religious assemblies, institutions, or structures within a jurisdiction.

§2000cc–1. Protection of religious exercise of institutionalized persons

(a) General rule

No government shall impose a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a person residing in or confined to an institution, as defined in section 1997 of this title, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, unless the government demonstrates that imposition of the burden on that person—

(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and

(2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.

(b) Scope of application

This section applies in any case in which—

(1) the substantial burden is imposed in a program or activity that receives Federal financial assistance; or (2) the substantial burden affects, or removal of that substantial burden would affect, commerce with foreign nations, among the several States, or with Indian tribes.

§2000cc–2. Judicial relief

(a) Cause of action

A person may assert a violation of this chapter as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief against a government. Standing to assert a claim or defense under this section shall be governed by the general rules of standing under article III of the Constitution.

(b) Burden of persuasion

If a plaintiff produces prima facie evidence to support a claim alleging a violation of the Free Exercise Clause or a violation of section 2000cc of this title, the government shall bear the burden of persuasion on any element of the claim, except that the plaintiff shall bear the burden of persuasion on whether the law (including a regulation) or government practice that is challenged by the claim substantially burdens the plaintiff’s exercise of religion.

(c) Full faith and credit
Adjudication of a claim of a violation of section 2000cc of this title in a non-Federal forum shall not be entitled to full faith and credit in a Federal court unless the claimant had a full and fair adjudication of that claim in the non-Federal forum.

(d) Omitted

(e) Prisoners

Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to amend or repeal the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (including provisions of law amended by that Act).

(f) Authority of United States to enforce this chapter The United States may bring an action for injunctive or declaratory relief to enforce compliance with this chapter. Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to deny, impair, or otherwise affect any right or authority of the Attorney General, the United States, or any agency, officer, or employee of the United States, acting under any law other than this subsection, to institute or intervene in any proceeding.

(g) Limitation

If the only jurisdictional basis for applying a provision of this chapter is a claim that a substantial burden by a government on religious exercise affects, or that removal of that substantial burden would affect, commerce with foreign nations, among the several States, or with Indian tribes, the provision shall not apply if the government demonstrates that all substantial burdens on, or the removal of all substantial burdens from, similar religious exercise throughout the Nation would not lead in the aggregate to a substantial effect on commerce with foreign nations, among the several States, or with Indian tribes.

§2000cc–3. Rules of construction

(a) Religious belief unaffected
Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to authorize any government to burden any religious belief.

(b) Religious exercise not regulated

Nothing in this chapter shall create any basis for restricting or burdening religious exercise or for claims against a religious organization including any religiously affiliated school or university, not acting under color of law.

(c) Claims to funding unaffected

Nothing in this chapter shall create or preclude a right of any religious organization to receive funding or other assistance from a government, or of any person to receive government funding for a religious activity, but this chapter may require a government to incur expenses in its own operations to avoid imposing a substantial burden on religious exercise.

(d) Other authority to impose conditions on funding unaffected Nothing in this chapter shall—

(1) authorize a government to regulate or affect, directly or indirectly, the activities or policies of a person other than a government as a condition of receiving funding or other assistance; or

(2) restrict any authority that may exist under other law to so regulate or affect, except as provided in this chapter.

(e) Governmental discretion in alleviating burdens on religious exercise

A government may avoid the preemptive force of any provision of this chapter by changing the policy or practice that results in a substantial burden on religious exercise, by retaining the policy or practice and exempting the substantially burdened religious exercise, by providing exemptions from the policy or practice for applications that substantially burden religious exercise, or by any other means that eliminates the substantial burden.

(f) Effect on other law

With respect to a claim brought under this chapter, proof that a substantial burden on a person’s religious exercise affects, or removal of that burden would affect, commerce with foreign nations, among the several States, or with Indian tribes, shall not establish any inference or presumption that Congress intends that any religious exercise is, or is not, subject to any law other than this chapter.

(g) Broad construction

This chapter shall be construed in favor of a broad protection of religious exercise, to the maximum extent permitted by the terms of this chapter and the Constitution.

(h) No preemption or repeal

Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to preempt State law, or repeal Federal law, that is equally as protective of religious exercise as, or more protective of religious exercise than, this chapter.

(i) Severability

If any provision of this chapter or of an amendment made by this chapter, or any application of such provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be unconstitutional, the remainder of this chapter, the amendments made by this chapter, and the application of the provision to any other person or circumstance shall not be affected.

§2000cc–4. Establishment Clause unaffected

Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to affect, interpret, or in any way address that portion of the first amendment to the Constitution prohibiting laws respecting an establishment of religion (referred to in this section as the “Establishment Clause”). Granting government funding, benefits, or exemptions, to the extent permissible under the Establishment Clause, shall not constitute a violation of this chapter. In this section, the term “granting”, used with respect to government funding, benefits, or exemptions, does not include the denial of government funding, benefits, or exemptions.

§2000cc–5. Definitions

In this chapter:

(1) Claimant

The term “claimant” means a person raising a claim or defense under this chapter.

(2) Demonstrates
The term “demonstrates” means meets the burdens of going forward with the evidence and of persuasion.

(3) Free Exercise Clause
The term “Free Exercise Clause” means that portion of the first amendment to the Constitution that proscribes laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion.

(4) Government
The term “government”—
(A) means—
(i) a State, county, municipality, or other governmental entity created under the authority of a State;
(ii) any branch, department, agency, instrumentality, or official of an entity listed in clause (i); and
(iii) any other person acting under color of State law; and
(B) for the purposes of sections 2000cc–2 (b) and 2000cc–3 of this title, includes the United States, a branch, department, agency, instrumentality, or official of the United States, and any other person acting under color of Federal law.

(5) Land use regulation
The term “land use regulation” means a zoning or landmarking law, or the application of such a law, that limits or restricts a claimant’s use or development of land (including a structure affixed to land), if the claimant has an ownership, leasehold, easement, servitude, or other property interest in the regulated land or a contract or option to acquire such an interest.
(6) Program or activity
The term “program or activity” means all of the operations of any entity as described in paragraph (1) or (2) of section 2000d–4a of this title.

(7) Religious exercise
(A) In general
The term “religious exercise” includes any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief.
(B) Rule
The use, building, or conversion of real property for the purpose of religious exercise shall be considered to be religious exercise of the person or entity that uses or intends to use the property for that purpose.

============================================

Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) supports our universal human rights of freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, and freedom of worship for ALL people — without exception. We reject protests against houses of worship, and we reject violence and attacks on houses of worship.

On September 11, 2001 – nine years ago, America was attacked by those who killed Americans of every identity group and every religion – and who sought to divide and terrorize the United States of America. New York City and Washington DC were attacked, but also one plane, Flight 93 that was hijacked to attack the White House or the Capitol building – was stopped – by Americans that refused to give in to fear and terror. Today, there are those who once again seek to spread fear and divide Americans on September 11.

In Florida, one group seeks to burn Qur’ans on September 11, 2010. We have seen from coast-to-coast, from California to Florida, a series of protests against those who seek to freely worship in Islamic mosques, in California, in Tennessee, in Wisconsin, in North Carolina, in Kentucky, in Florida, in Connecticut, and throughout New York. In Florida, we have seen a pipe bomb attack on a mosque, in Texas a children’s playground in a mosque was burned down, while children are harassed, in Tennessee mosque properties have been vandalized and people have been convicted of arson attacks on mosques. On our national airwaves and media, we see and hear those who call for bomb attacks on mosques, and those who seek to spread open intolerance and hatred.

Responsible for Equality and Liberty (R.E.A.L.) supports our universal human rights to freedom of religion, freedom of worship, and freedom of conscience for all people of all faiths, including the freedom of religion supported under Article 1 of the United States Constitution. Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

We are deeply concerned about the escalation of intolerance and hate that we seeing growing around the world, including in America today. We will be inviting the public to join us in a freedom of religion, freedom of worship, and freedom of conscience event on September 11 at 2 PM in Freedom Plaza in Washington DC to give Americans an opportunity to publicly show their support for such freedoms.

There is more information at 911Freedom.com — see also Facebook Event: Public Rally for Freedom of Religion, Worship, Conscience.

We urge those who promote hate and intolerance to unburden the hate from their hearts.

We urge all to Choose Love, Not Hate. Love Wins.

============================================

Joy, Joy, Joy

See more funny videos and TBT Videos at Today's Big Thing.

Remembering You Through William Carlos Williams: Part 1

For our wedding, too,
the light was wakened
and shone. The light!
the light stood before us
waiting!
I thought the world
stood still.
At the altar
so intent was I
before my vows,
so moved by your presence
a girl so pale
and ready to faint
that I pitied
and wanted to protect you.

(from Asphodel, That Greeny Flower, William Carlos Williams)

Do you remember when we were wed? You bouncing up and down on your toes, saying yes, yes, yes before you were asked? I, motionless (perhaps ready to faint), wearing a pink linen dress, so pale it looked like the base of a fingernail, that part called moon? You were excited just like Tigger and I was worried just like Eeyore? Do you remember that? Kim and Ted were our witnesses, and we were through in seconds, it seemed?

April 29, 1987—a day you swore to love, honor and cherish me, vows you didn’t ever break. A day I said, “Don’t put obey in there, Your Honor, because I won’t swear to that.” He smiled and didn’t. A day Kim stole tulips from the courthouse lawn, a day Pam’s Doughnut shop shivareed us with free coffee and doughnuts. A day when I went back to my first day of work and you went back to school to finish your final exams in a lit class named, oddly enough Satire.

That night there was a poetry reading, my final exam, and we went all dressed up, you in a tuxedo jacket and jeans, me in a black strapless dress (one I still have, put away for Raleigh to see and know that I loved you and wanted to wear the most beautiful clothing for you). We were so happy; we smiled till our faces were sore.

Our friends took bets that we wouldn’t stay married 3 weeks; family members prayed that we wouldn’t.

My teacher was angry, too, because I’d turned down the MFA with Matthews, and he announced that our wedding proved whimsy was alive and well in Murray. Whimsy: Erratic behavior, unstable behavior, capricious behavior. You grinned and told him I was now your lawfully welded wife. You were a sculptor and knew exactly what you were saying. Welded: A bond created by softening with heat and fusing or hammering together. I didn’t know that the bond would be like that, but it was and is. And it was the love that led to sex on your part and the sex that turned to love on mine. Anvil and hammer, torch and sparks—and always passion. We fought, we flirted, we forever felt its force.

I loved you. I love you. I will love you. But I cannot die for you the way I want. Love is calling me to the things of this world. I’m calling you back to me the only way I can.

The Great Moon Hoax: Waxing Poetic?

August 25: General Interest

1835 : The Great Moon Hoax

On this day in 1835, the first in a series of six articles announcing the supposed discovery of life on the moon appears in the New York Sun newspaper.

Known collectively as "The Great Moon Hoax," the articles were supposedly reprinted from the Edinburgh Journal of Science. The byline was Dr. Andrew Grant, described as a colleague of Sir John Herschel, a famous astronomer of the day. Herschel had in fact traveled to Capetown, South Africa, in January 1834 to set up an observatory with a powerful new telescope. As Grant described it, Herschel had found evidence of life forms on the moon, including such fantastic animals as unicorns, two-legged beavers and furry, winged humanoids resembling bats. The articles also offered vivid description of the moon's geography, complete with massive craters, enormous amethyst crystals, rushing rivers and lush vegetation.

The New York Sun, founded in 1833, was one of the new "penny press" papers that appealed to a wider audience with a cheaper price and a more narrative style of journalism. From the day the first moon hoax article was released, sales of the paper shot up considerably. It was exciting stuff, and readers lapped it up. The only problem was that none of it was true. The Edinburgh Journal of Science had stopped publication years earlier, and Grant was a fictional character. The articles were most likely written by Richard Adams Locke, a Sun reporter educated at Cambridge University. Intended as satire, they were designed to poke fun at earlier, serious speculations about extraterrestrial life, particularly those of Reverend Thomas Dick, a popular science writer who claimed in his bestselling books that the moon alone had 4.2 billion inhabitants.

Readers were completely taken in by the story, however, and failed to recognize it as satire. The craze over Herschel's supposed discoveries even fooled a committee of Yale University scientists, who traveled to New York in search of the Edinburgh Journal articles. After Sun employees sent them back and forth between the printing and editorial offices, hoping to discourage them, the scientists returned to New Haven without realizing they had been tricked.

On September 16, 1835, the Sun admitted the articles had been a hoax. People were generally amused by the whole thing, and sales of the paper didn’t suffer. The Sun continued operation until 1950, when it merged with the New York World-Telegram. The merger folded in 1967. A new New York Sun newspaper was founded in 2002, but it has no relation to the original.

(From Today in History)
_______



Tonight's just-past-full moon is the Hoaxer Moon. It's not really truly full but it surely looks it. (Oyster Cracker? Sand Dollar? Moon?)

Good Night, Moon. I'm going to bed. To sleep, I hope, and perchance to dream. I could get used to sleeping, just not to sleeping alone. I miss Harvey, yet I have his words, his books, and his art. I have the ability to know that I was cherished. I wish that I could learn to love and be kind to myself.

"Not a Kiss or Look Be Lost"--Sleeping Alone

Lullaby--W. H. Auden

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit's carnal ecstasy.

Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell,
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.

Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of welcome show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find the mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness find you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.

_______

I love this poem's music. Some day I'll write about the cards hidden here. Right now I just want to think about the line "the grave/Proves the child ephemeral."

I slept. I slept. I slept. Six straight hours and I feel rather human. I wish I'd dreamed of Harvey, but at least I slept. I miss sleeping with his arm around me. I felt "watched by every human love" when we slept together. To me, he was "the entirely beautiful."

Someday there will be that day of welcome, but that day is probably not today or tomorrow or the next day, either--tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, as the Bard puts it. There is coming a day though, when I'll see him again. I long for that day so much.

Shadow, Harvey's beloved black cat, has finally stopped running to the door every time he hears a footfall. He's finally stopped crying for him. I haven't. But it's a little bit easier to accept that I'm alone when I remember I was someone's human love, and someone was mine.

Your curls are a pomander between my breasts. Song of Songs

From lavende, which means to wash

Lavender--Dr. Watkins' Essential Body Oil, lavender-scented sheets, new lavender lawn nightgown--Will this be the night that I finally sleep?

It's hard to believe that only 5 weeks ago, I was happy. I was kissing my husband goodbye in front of the chapel at Sewanee. It was a good kiss, a kiss that promised, More to come. The warmth of him, the width of him, the warp and weft of him against me; the scent of him, vanilla, still lingering in his closet, on his pillow, the one that still holds the impression of his head...

The dream of homecoming. And then coming home to this.

How can it be possible, to go from kissing your husband to missing him so direly? How did I get here, from happily married to unhappily ever after?

I know that we had a great love, that Harvey knew how to do it right. As an example, here's the last text he ever sent me. Only hours later, he was gone.



I know, too, that the "we" of 23 years together is gone; the two have become one in an obverse of our vows to love, to cherish, to become one flesh. My question is this: Is there going to be any me, ever again?

Do I Dare to Eat a Peach?

Dear Muse,

The first of the self-centered, sloppy, sentimental Harvey poems has arrived today.

Is it okay if I still like it? It has coneflowers and wild canaries in it, so maybe it's a pastoral.

Yours till the end of thyme,

Pamela

Nat King Cole: Live, Not Memorex

Les Amants: Mesmerizing Choice is Yours

O I sat down under its shadow with great delight.
O the fruit was sweet to my taste.

(Song of Songs)

After Dickinson's #640: You Saturated Sight

Dear Harvey,

Did you know how loved you were? Did I ever tell you as often as you told me? Did you understand that every time you smiled at me, I melted just a little bit—turning over the years from an iceberg to an igloo to an icicle dripping in the sunlight, prism refracting the sun into shards of color? Did you know that after 23 years, you still made me want you, still made me tingle? Did I tell you that enough? Did I show you in bed or out of it how very special you were to me?

Remember when we met, how I wouldn’t hold hands or let you touch my face or my arms unless we were making love? Remember how I couldn’t even call sex making love? You taught me how to love--that was with you, always with you, only with you. I couldn’t believe you loved me, 23 hours or 23 years into our relationship, whether I was made up or rumpled, too thin or too heavy, too wired or too tired, sick with lupus and my hair falling out or vibrantly pregnant with Raleigh and glowing. You always made me feel beautiful, and you taught me what it was like to be adored. I know that I pleased you in many ways. Whom will I cook for now? Whose eyes will I seek across a crowded room, at a party? Whose voice on the phone will ever excite me, inspire me, motivate me? Who’ll challenge my preconceptions, tell me trivia, make me laugh? Who will get my silly puns and chime in on my god-awful rap songs? Whom will I hold? Who will read the poems I don’t want to write, the stories I no longer want to tell?

I’ve written about this loneliness, this bereavement, before, but the truth of it still astounds me. Every morning is Velcro. The hooks of you mesh with the loops of me, until the light rips us apart. I cannot sleep without you. I have pillows and quilts and good sheets with high thread counts and books and hot milk and enough Benadryl to cure a children’s crusade through poison ivy. Nothing lets me sleep through the night. I sit in the rocking chair where you rocked Raleigh and Daniel all those hours and I just cry and cry.

Did you know that you were an excellent father? Our kids are lovely, loved, and loving. They’re kind and smart and funny. They are the best of us and get the best of me constantly. You’d be so proud of how well they’re managing, although they miss you and love to talk about you. You’d be proud of their adventures at school and at home and the fact that they’re continuing on with their education and lives and interests.

Did you know that you were an excellent teacher, so beloved that every one of your schools is holding a balloon release in your honor? All the G/T students wrote sentences of what they’d like to tell you, placed them in bright balloons, and inflated them with helium. At a school assembly, Rick Harrison, your buddy and fellow artist, led a discussion of all your excellent qualities as an artist, a friend, and a teacher. Here are a few of the comments the kids shared at Hickman County’s assembly: He taught me everything. The greatest folder of origami. The best draw-er I will ever see. Mindful. Intelligent. Here in my heart forever. He was the greatest one ever. He was boatloads of fun and you still learned. He loved us. He loved us. He loved us. You just knew he loved you.

Balloons—chartreuse, crimson, pink, purple, and that funny shade of apple-yellow you loved (the color of your newest dress shirt, the one I try to sleep in)-—went soaring into the sky. The overcast clouds parted to let a huge beam of sunlight through, just as the balloons reached the top of the school. We watched them form molecular models or constellations only you could identify, stories about long-ago gods only you could tell.

I know that you sometimes said you’d never be able to live without me, that I was ornery enough to make it without you. You were wrong. I cannot do this. I want only to be lying next to you. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, yours with mine, mine with yours. I pray every day for peace and grace to acknowledge and accept your absence: Lord, I believe, help now my unbelief. The Jesus prayer from Franny and Zooey. Our Father. Help by Lennon and McCartney.

This afternoon, as I drove the back roads of 121, 94, 123, and 58 to Hickman County, I saw dozens of dragonflies suturing the sky, hawks and doves, kestrels and crows, and all types of butterflies: zebras, spicebush swallowtails, tigers, monarchs, even mourning cloaks and painted ladies flitting in the hedges outside your school. How you’d have loved their many-colored wings. How I wish you were here to show me the ones I missed.

Did you know you were loved? That’s what I'd write in your balloon, before I send it skyward.

Oh,sweetheart, you were, and you are, and you always will be.

"Back to the 80s" Self-Pitying Post: Bad Day

Dear Whoever's in Charge of the Soundtrack of My Grief:

What kind of mourning turns turns into Robert Palmer wailing "Addicted to Love"?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Sincerely,

Pamela
____

Truly, madly, deeply, my life is a Robert Palmer song, one of the tracks to which H. and I used to dance back in the day.

The lights are on/but you're not home.

TRANSLATION: I work 2 jobs, plus try to mother, plus try to write, plus need to clean this pigsty of a house. I have no time and no energy, because:

You can't sleep/you can't eat
There's no doubt/you're in deep.

TRANSLATION: I cannot sleep, unless I take the Vistaril my wonderful physician prescribed, and then I cannot wake up in time (6-1/2 hours after getting home from work) to wake up Raleigh for school.

Food still makes me throw up if I force myself to eat. I can eat nothing but raspberries and pineapple. And I'm sick of those. Even spinach salad with fresh strawberries made me sick today. Even lunch with my dear friend Sally (she of the the wondrous spiral hair and extreme kindness) made me sick an hour later.

And the "IN DEEP" part? Don't even get me started on trying to manage money.

I have prayed. I have called the medical examiner. I have confided in friends. I have sought refuge in journaling. I have reached out to others. I have seen the world's best internist and have seen and will continue to see a counselor.

Physiologically, I'm fine. Psychologically, I am "normally grieving."

Why can't I grieve with the aid of sleep and food?

"One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop

This is my favorite portrait of Elizabeth Bishop, in her butterfly chair with her tuxedo cat. Harvey cut a silhouette of this and faced it with vellum on which he'd copied (forged might be a better word) her final handwritten draft of "One Art." It's a beautiful piece of work, and he turned down a $500.00 bid from another teacher.



The art of losing's not too hard to master...

I'm still waiting for the (Write it!) part.

Our Beautiful Baby's a Teenager

Thirteen years ago, Harvey held my hand (I pressed 8 crescent moons into his palm), and I pushed into the world a beautiful blonde baby who rolled over in the nursery that same day. From her constant activity while still tethered to me, I was the only one not surprised by her feats of derring-do. Her father and I admired her feistiness, her beauty, and her unflagging will to move forward. These are the things that I admire about her today.

Raleigh Elizabeth, my ammonite, my fern-unfurling-girl, you are the best of your father and get the best of me every day. Thank you for your presence in my life. I will never ever post a picture of you here without your permission, so today this girl from the past will have to do:

For the Radish King

Click above to see Paula Deen reenact pants on the ground.

Every time I think I am wearing a horridly uncomfortable outfit, I remember there's such a thing as too much comfort.

I adore Paula Deen: Her cookbooks, her magazine, her sons and her husband, who obviously adores her.

After Silence in Church: I Realize I Am No...

Stranger.

Outcast.

Widow.

I am all of those, and none of these defines me. What I am is lonesome. Every morning is Velcro, the hooks of Harvey being ripped from the loops of me as daylight opens my just-closed eyelids.

I am lonesome not for a country, a city, a congregation, a classroom. I am lonesome for a companion, a particular person. I miss my sweetheart so very much. I'm trying with the cracks in my heart and my head and my whole self to mend relationships and to glue together my children and me into a family. It is so hard, so very hard to turn 4 into 3, and then into one.

Think of me. Think of me as a person who is a person. See me.

That's all I ask. See me, not the grief. See me, not the tears over cherries in the produce section of Kroger. See me, not the bags of belongings left at the thrift store. See me, not the stereotype.

I was once worthy of love. I still love. See that. Say hello.

Deva by Michael Parkes: Poesis, Poesis

ARTIST'S STATEMENT



From the stone, the leopard and the dragonfly.

From the breath, the poem.

All shaped things.

E unus pluribum.


(If I write another book, I would like this to be the cover image).

Why White Lilies, White Roses, and Willow?

At Harvey's memorial service, I sent him three arrangements. Each featured two white flowers and wands of black willow. Many people have asked, "Why those flowers? Were they Harvey's favorites?" No, they were symbolic of our relationship and reflected his interest in mythology.

White Lilies, White Roses, Black Willow

White Lilies: It's heavenly to be with you. (As Hera nursed Ares (aka Mars), her breast milk dripped from Olympus, creating the Milky Way. When a star from the Milky Way fell to earth, white lilies sprang forth).

White Roses: Happy marriage, Eternal love and beauty (At Aphrodite's birth, she emerged from the waters in sea foam. When the sea foam touched the earth, white roses bloomed).

Black Willow: Sexual Chemistry, Monogamy and Fertility; Lyric Poetry (This was the tree favored by Persephone; it was also carried by Orpheus into Hades when he descended to retrieve Eurydice).

That's why we chose this trio of white flowers and wands. Harvey and I were still crazy about each other, or maybe just crazy.

It's finally raining. It hasn't rained in my part of Kentucky since Harvey died on July 14. I am glad the earth will no longer scorch.

More Freewriting on Wallace Stevens

Large Red Man Reading—Wallace Stevens

There were ghosts that returned to earth to hear his phrases,
As he sat there reading, aloud, the great blue tabulae.
They were those from the wilderness of stars that had expected more.

There were those that returned to hear him read from the poem of life,
Of the pans above the stove, the pots on the table, the tulips among them.
They were those that would have wept to step barefoot into reality,

That would have wept and been happy, have shivered in the frost
And cried out to feel it again, have run fingers over leaves
And against the most coiled thorn, have seized on what was ugly

And laughed, as he sat there reading, from out of the purple tabulae,
The outlines of being and its expressings, the syllables of its law:
Poesis, poesis, the literal characters, the vatic lines,

Which in those ears and in those thin, those spended hearts,
Took on color, took on shape and the size of things as they are
And spoke the feeling for them, which was what they had lacked.

_____
MUSINGS, PART A

The human body and its physical presence in the world (the poesis or maker) vs the incorporeal existence of the non-physical (ghosts who returned).

Without art/imagination/the making of connections (and poems—poesis!) in the literal world, existence is no more than that of ghosts in “a wilderness of stars.”

The act of transformation (artistic awareness) is found by having stepped “barefoot into reality.” A life is alive because of everyday wonder: praise for the pots and pans, leaves and thorns.

_____
MUSINGS, PART B

Use of the long line—it’s vatic, too!

Use of blue (sky, imagination, cool and restful, expansive?)

Use of purple (color that transforms between dawn and day, dusk and evening; also a royal color)

Use of red (vividly alive, especially holding the sky colored tabulae)
_____
MUSINGS, PART C

Possible source?????

Ralph Waldo Emerson, from the end of “Bacchus”

Refresh the faded tints, ghosts?
Recut the aged prints, Linear impressions/poems
And write my old adventures with the pen Poesis?
Which on the first day drew, the tabulae
Upon the tablets blue, AHA!
The dancing Pleiads and eternal men. The mythic and wilderness
of stars/men/vatic lines?

______
MUSINGS, PART D

VATIC: synonyms are divinatory, mantic, sibyllic (Use as a pun/slant rhyme for syllabic?), sybilline

Worst Day So Far: August 10

Here's a poem that recalls the days when we were so poor we couldn't afford ice. (Click the post title to listen).

First Anniversary: Reading Russian Literature

No money, so we sip from glass cups niched
In silver holders; I show you how my
Grandmother kept cubes of sugar between
Her teeth, to make life sweeter; I’m reading

Some dead poet (not Zhivago), tracing
Words — samovar, nyet, and the quicksilver
Cyrillic letters twining round the rust-
Dappled canister: Russian Caravan.

How our skin’s slicked with sweat — too hot to
Sleep (or even stand); how all we can
Afford is this: back porch, spiked tea, spotting
These slugs. Each pair’s a heat-slick valentine,

Drooping below the bleeding hearts you snitched
From a neighbor’s garden — swollen pouts that
Blossom in shadow — and, like slugs, salt will
Melt them both. Sugar cube, teacup, mottled

Little leopards, milk-blue tin, pearls of heat,
Fringed branches, slow-swaying swing. You wish, like
A child at Christmas, for snow; I loved you
Hopelessly is all I remember of Pushkin.

(for Harvey)

(from A WALK THROUGH THE MEMORY PALACE, originally published by qarrtsiluni, linked above)

_______

I miss my sweetheart. He'd have been 46 today. I've tried everything that I can think of to feel less alone, but I am just hollow. I don't know if this will ever pass. Nothing helps yet.

Here's the world now:

This is a poem that Harvey wrote for his brothers and sister during the 2009 Purchase Area Writing Program (PAWP). I hope they'll be pleased to receive this as a last gift from him, on what would have been his 46th birthday.

FOR YOU

Brotherhood is the lifeline
that binds us together,
an airline holding the divers to the boat,
bloodline running through our veins,
storyline branching out
from the root that tethers.

A surgeon's wire snaked its way
into my heart,
leaving six stents,
one for each of us.

The lines on our faces
grow more intricate,
more intimate,
branching,
mapping all of the possible paths
to the heart.

HELLO AND GOOD-BYE: BBQ on the River

PHOTOS COURTESY SAM PARKER

PURPLE PROSE & FULL WIDOW'S WEEDS

O how shall I warble myself for the dead one there I loved?
And how shall I deck my soul for the large sweet soul that has gone?
And what shall my perfume be for the grave of him I love?

From Part 10 of "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" by Walt Whitman

______

Writing about Harvey is almost impossible. So many images flood my mind, wash over my body. I can't even take off my toenail polish because he helped me put it on right before we drove to Sewanee. Removing it seems be another erasure: the foot cradled in the hand, the brush and the lacquer and the laughter and our daughter Raleigh's supervision.

What can you do with a memory like that, when memory is all you have left of a man like that? Wake up and cry for him and and curse the sun for continuing to scorch the the grass and the lilacs and the lilies? Hold his memory closer than you can hold him?

When Harvey's ashes came, I lifted the box and was struck by the thought that this is the last time I'll ever hold all of Harvey in my arms. I know that's screeching-chalk-on-blackboard maudlin, but when he's scattered, in the places that he wants to join (where we first met, first made love, first lived together, first swam in the lake, and where he first wanted to build a house on his family's farm before a road went through and ruined the land)--where will he be and where will I be?

How shall I warble a song for him I love?
_______

PS Here's one of the last prints that Harvey and I found and framed. I love her one glove, her one bared hand.

Wallace Stevens: "Fabliau of Florida"

Fabliau of Florida—Wallace Stevens

Barque of phosphor
On the palmy beach,

Move outward into heaven,
Into the alabasters
And night blues.

Foam and cloud are one.
Sultry moon-monsters
Are dissolving.

Fill your black hull
With white moonlight.

There will never be an end
To this droning of the surf.
______

Fabliau: "a metrical tale, often coarsely humourous” (OED)

The fabliau relies on puns/double meanings of language, as does poetry. Mark Strand points out two of these puns in his analysis of “Fabliau of Florida.” I’d like to add a few comments to Strand’s own.

Barque of phosphor

Strand calls this the bark of the poet. It’s also more than the voice of the poet; it suggests embarking on a new writing project, one that’s glowing but not yet enlightening).

Fill your black hull (pen/ink) with white moonlight (stolen light from the sun.

This might be a real fountain pen with imaginary ink (think Moore!); therefore this may be representative of what’s real and ideal, but also illusory.

There will never been an end to this droning of surf/serf. As Strand suggests, the serf continues enslaved to the page and drones on past the end. How does this relate to the idea of poetic closure?

Side note: Florida: land of flowers, also suggesting florid-—again another example of Stevens’ use of red (“Large Red Man Reading”). Look at color in Stevens, especially in Harmonium, more than you have already, Pamela.



Postscript: Harmonium: organ that is controlled (as is poetry) by air that's modified by the pressure of hands on keys(the typewriter) and feet (the pedal or the metrical foot). The calliope is sometimes also controlled by air instead of steam. Is this a sly reference to Calliope, muse of heroic poetry? Something to think about....

School Days, School Daze

My baby started 8th grade today. I just watched her walk up the street from our 1880 Queen Anne to the middle school that's a mere 25 years younger. It formerly housed the high school from which my grandfather graduated in 1918.

Raleigh too is changing. When she started kindergarten, Daniel was a senior in high school. My friend Rena was the bus assistant that year, and she took a photo of me standing next to Raleigh, who didn't come up to my waist. Now our eyes are at a level. She'll be taller than me by Halloween.

This is the first year I've taken the opening-day photos and waved off a child by myself. Harvey and I always watched them--from Daniel's kindergarten (where I followed the bus, the word's most inept tail), to his departure for MSU as a freshman, when we watched him (plus half a ton of electronics) pull out of the driveway for the dorm. I was 46; Harvey was 39. He told me we weren't older, just better. I still felt as though I were Methuselah's older sister!

This year as I watch Raleigh heading for school for the ninth straight year, as she strides up the street in her Aeropostale tee and madras shorts, I remember Harvey. I wish Harvey were here in a more tangible way than memory, because for 13 straight years, I waved him off on his first day of school, too. Unlike the kids, he had to have two cups of coffee sweetened with creamer and Splenda and a silly Disney tie. He was so proud of teaching, and he loved his students and coworkers in the G/T program so much. I hope they feel his love today, instead of grieving for him.

I wrote a poem a year or so ago called "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackboard." (Yes, it's a parody/homage of Wallace Stevens). The line that I like from this poem is "It was a small part of the palimpsest." Palimpsest--the image that lies underneath the scrim of chalk on slate, the strokes of paint on canvas, the gilt of illuminated letters on medieval vellum. What lies underneath this day is the memory of Harvey. Even though I don't see him, he's everywhere.

Wallace Stevens: From Harmonium

THE HOUSE WAS QUIET AND THE WORLD WAS CALM

The house was quiet and the world was calm.
The reader became the book; and summer night

Was like the conscious being of the book.
The house was quiet and the world was calm.

The words were spoken as if there was no book,
Except that the reader leaned above the page,

Wanted to lean, wanted much to be
The scholar to whom his book is true, to whom

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
The house was quiet because it had to be.

The quiet was part of the meaning, part of the mind:
The access of perfection to the page.

And the world was calm. The truth in a calm world,
In which there is no other meaning, itself

Is calm, itself is summer and night, itself
Is the reader leaning late and reading there.

_____
Nothing's more perfect than the reader-writer-book trinity. I loved to see my husband reading. His eyes would open wide with wonder, squint in concentration, narrow in disagreement. Always, he'd turn to me and say, "Books!" This is the man who taught his younger brothers and sister the alphabet by ordering them to bring him World Book volumes.

I miss Harvey every day. Every waking minute and every dreaming one, too.