Stanley Kunitz is lovely

The Layers, then this:

Touch Me

Summer is late, my heart.
Words plucked out of the air
some forty years ago
when I was wild with love
and torn almost in two
scatter like leaves this night
of whistling wind and rain.
It is my heart that's late,
it is my song that's flown.
Outdoors all afternoon
under a gunmetal sky
staking my garden down,
I kneeled to the crickets trilling
underfoot as if about
to burst from their crusty shells;
and like a child again
marveled to hear so clear
and brave a music pour
from such a small machine.
What makes the engine go?
Desire, desire, desire.
The longing for the dance
stirs in the buried life.
One season only,
and it's done.
So let the battered old willow
thrash against the windowpanes
and the house timbers creak.
Darling, do you remember
the man you married? Touch me,
remind me who I am.

Sundowning

I'd written about my friend's depression before I left for the show. Now I'm back (there's a story; I'll tell it later) and noticing my own patterns as well.

As long as the sun's up I'm happy. I can deal with things, I'm competent, my brain is my own. Let the sun pass the horizon, though, and everything drops out of me. That awful despair and loneliness and irrationality enter. There's something both reassuring and awful in the way it's so predictable. I know it's not -me-; it's some sort of reaction to something. Early to bed, early to rise would help it at risk of severely limiting my social contact (in bed by ten every night means you don't get out to much, I think) but that may be worth it. It's getting pretty bad lately.

Part of the bad is certainly because I'm spending so much time with Angus. He doesn't love me how I'd like him to, though he does a lot in other ways; I'm running heavy support for him on and off but I'm hesitant to lean back (trying not to be, there); and in general when you spend too much time with any one person they stop being enthusiastic about you.

It'll be good to be working again.

It'll be good when I've found a place to live.