It’s eighty-two degrees & pure blue skies in London, according to David, while 

my wife’s sudden, recurring, high-pitched, screaming fits continue unabated 

against New England rain & clouds. Can’t get me down. What with so much else 

that tries to. Hear from Camelia & Bent in Roma, simply assuming it’s Beautiful 

& Eternal, while I head out toward the dismal Atlantic hoping to transform it into 

the Aegean in imagination. But first stop the wine store to ask Chris Ziagos, who 

spent ten days on the island of Hydra last October, for something from Greece. 

The Sigalas Santorini is made from the Assyrtiko grape, which satisfies my 

longing for something ancient today as opposed to all the contemporary 

nonsense, & of course, the island’s a long-held-dream destination. The older I get 

the further it drifts like some lost Atlantis. Chris says it’s an “oyster wine” like 

Chablis, flinty & lush at the same Time, which I’ll keep in mind on my walk. 

Parking at the free spaces along Thames Street in front of the new International 

Ferry Terminal with its four clocks facing each cardinal point, the fog carries the 

sea on broad shoulders, redolent, fresh, & sweet, almost new. The transformation 

from Atlantic to Aegean lasts for a good half minute when I suddenly realize this 

is all I need. The waves the wind the fog, & that huge white tanker in the distance 

too shrouded in fog to make out its name even with my spyglass. I think of 

Kathleen with all that warmth inside her solar plexus wishing she could see & 

feel it too, but granted, it’s difficult to make out the best inside ourselves, again, 

what with all the screens & doubts, distractions & lack. The wine will help. 

Knowing I want to pick up something to go with it, I still don’t hesitate to give 

the young hobo sitting on the narrow-gauge rail tracks the miraculous finnif in 

my left-hand jeans pocket, change from the wine, believing miracles exist both 

here & there in the Aegean. On my way out the house I grabbed one lone book to 

take along, Snyder’s Riprap, & Cold Mountain Poems, because it’s light & 

transportable to go with spyglass, Moleskin, & pen. Crack it open to “Migration 

of Birds,” written in April, 1956, a hummingbird stops his studies, while 

“Kerouac outside, reads the Diamond Sutra in the sun.” Yep, I’m really here in 

America alright, for better or worse! The granite ledges prove it’s not that new a 

land. This sea is reality! The smile on my face is not exactly that of the Buddha, 

but it’s not feigned, either. Minor joys & jouissance, so it’s no smirk, & no lark, 

no clown, you can tell that from the eyes that go along with it. Humor really has 

a grand place in life, but not in poetry, please, at least not for me. If you see it in 

Olson or Pound or Williams, let me know. I don’t. I’m glad I took Snyder out 

here, when at first I thought of Odysseus Elytis [“I have conceived my figure 

between a sea that comes to view behind the whitewashed little wall of a chapel 

and a barefoot girl with the wind lifting her dress…”], or Seferis, or Homer 

himself, although now that I think of it Cavafy may have been a good choice. No, 

nothing humorous, this is serious stuff, the upper regions of poetry. As soon as I 

turn round to head back to the car the tug escorts the white container ship, Ingrid 

Gorthon, out of the fog flying her Cyprus flag toward South Portland at 43.64 lat, 

70.27 lon. To get back to town I take Fore Street, avoiding all the Fourth tourists, 

who know nothing but Commercial Street. Amy tells me the oysters came in from 

Wellfleet yesterday. My wife greets me with a bright smile at home, as if my 

wandering out, then back, dissipated her Blues, Blues that belong here, unique to 

America, as contagious as the nightly news.