G1 - Gratitude

Remembered Words

GRATITUDE: A crone feels gratitude. I’ve always been quick to list my many blessings.

However, for some reason lately I’ve begun to feel intense gratitude. Really feeling the gratitude has made a huge difference in my outlook. Sometimes while I am out on my walk, I lift my arms and say, “Eternal Spirit, Mother, Father, God, Thank you.” Then I call out those things that fill my soul with thanksgiving. I mostly do this when there is no one about to hear, but if I am overheard, it won’t matter. It is hard to embarrass a crone.

Today I am grateful for my ears.

I am an auditory learner, one who relies on hearing and speaking as the main way of learning. Needing to talk out ideas, I often don’t know what I think until I hear myself say those thoughts aloud, and I learn best by hearing, except in the case of directions.

There are countless lines, snippets of dialog, stuck in my head, some from early childhood, some said to me directly, some overheard bits of conversation. One or two are not pleasant, but I don’t dwell on those. A few continue to fill me with awe, and I am still seeking to fully comprehend them. In this post I want to reflect on some remembered words.

I must have been about five, playing on my grandmother’s porch, when I caught what gave me a big boost. My two older sisters had lovely, thick brown hair and matching dark eyes. They looked alike, and I wanted to look like them, but, alas, I was fair, my blond hair wispy and my eyes green. My grownup cousin, Edmond, who had been reared by my grandparents and who was home from the army, was talking inside the house. He said that my mother’s daughters were all pretty, “but that littlest one is a pure-dee beauty.” Beautiful is not an adjective I claim to have heard often during the years to come, but, hey, sometimes once is enough, especially when uttered by my handsome cousin, whose picture is at the top of this post. I want credit for having kept that comment to myself for many years, not telling my sisters until we were senior citizens.

Another uplifting bit comes to mind, one I captured when I was about ten, sitting near the classroom entrance, reading aloud. My teacher must have been beckoned to the open doorway by another adult. I don’t believe I saw that second person’s face, but the voice said, “Was that a Hoover reading? You’re always impressed when you hear one.” I was a Hoover. Although I’ve been a Myers now for over 44 years and am sometimes a Calvin, I am still a Hoover, and I try to read like one.

Now let me share one of the comments that I still ponder. I was eight years old when my mother’s brother died. His name was Earl Howard Eaton, and he died at thirty. The youngest of nine children, a couple of years older than my cousin Edmond with whom he grew up, he was the darling of the family. I adored him, and his death, the first I had ever experienced, made a big impression on me, starting with the terrible morning we received the phone call. I remember the long drive to Grandma’s, remember the dazed feeling I had upon seeing the most important adults in my life in abject grief. My grandmother sat in a wooden rocker, moving very slowly. Edmond was on the floor, his head in her lap, sobbing. Each time she rocked, she silently stroked his hair. I remember every song sung at the funeral, but the memorable statement was made by my cousin who was named for Earl.  The adults were too broken to pay much attention to us kids. During the funeral, I sat on a church pew, undoubtedly with my older sisters. Howard Eaton, a tow-headed cousin of about five, sat just down from me surely with his older siblings. Howard, a very quiet child, and I were not especially close. In fact, there were lots and lots of us cousins, and I doubt I had ever heard Howard say anything until that day.  However, when the casket moved down the aisle, Howard must have felt compelled to speak. He slid closer to me and whispered, “Uncle Earl is in that box,” words that I used in a novel many years later and words that express much about the mystery that is death.

 There are many others from childhood, but I will move on to my college days. Those years were spent totally embedded in the Baptist Student Union. I wouldn’t trade that time, still treasure much of what I gleaned and the friends who are forever an important part of my life. However, during my senior year, I began to feel changes inside me, lots of doubts as to what I did and did not believe. Dr. Whit Marks, a physics professor, was our faculty advisor. I loved and respected Dr. Marks,did not want to shock him or leave him worried about me, but honesty is one of my weaknesses or strengths. I felt obligated to tell him I had lost my faith, and I expected to see pain on his face.  Instead he smiled and shrugged. “I’m not afraid for you to doubt,” he said. “Doubt it all, if you want to. You will come around.” I spent a lot of time saying I didn’t know what I believed, don’t know that I ever decided. In fact, a couple of years ago at a dinner where I received an award, my good friend, Helen Newton, sang a song about questions. I requested the Susan Boyle song because the lyrics state that questions brought her to who she was meant to be. At some point, I made peace with the questions. I have Whit Marks to thank for that. No, my views never went back to be as traditional as they were earlier, but had he reacted differently on that long ago day, I might not have the strength and peace I find daily in prayer.

I could go on for a long time about remembered words, but I am reminded of one of my father’s sayings. If I keep writing, I won’t “have a snowball’s chance in hell” of cleaning my office before the party I am planning for the weekend.

G5 - Goals

GOALS: A crone has goals. My goals right now involve eating correctly and writing two novels. I have always over eaten, have never eaten correctly for six weeks. Will this public declaration help me stick with it? We’ll see. During October I also plan to write 10,000 words on a new novel for teenagers and do three character sketches for an adult novel that has been simmering inside me for twenty-five years.

Overholser House

“I’m going to bed now and pray to wake up skinny,” my friend Dode would often say when we lived across the hall from each other in the college dorm. Dode was never really fat, but girls sometimes worry about an extra pound or five. She is short, a fact behind her college nickname, Squatty Body.

Dode was the name of one of my three imaginary friends when I was a little girl, although had I been able to spell at the time, I would have probably spelled the name Dodie. The other two were Baby Sally and Any Drug Counter. I know Baby Sally must have gotten her name from a character in my older sister’s reader, and I remember being attracted to a phrase on a radio commercial,  explaining  that some product could be obtained at “any drug counter.” I have no idea where I got the name Dode, but when I met her at college, I felt I had been waiting a long time for her. Dode is still one of my closest friends. Sadly, I lost track totally of Baby Sally and Any Drug Counter.

 Squatty Body was, of course, kidding about expecting God to suddenly make her thin. However, I’d like to claim that perhaps divine intervention kept Dode from ever becoming seriously overweight while I, on the other hand, have gotten heavier and heavier with each passing year.

Three weeks ago today, I announced my goal of seeing if I could eat correctly for six weeks. A few times in the past, I have lost a good bit of weight, but those were the days when my metabolism was different, and weight came off more quickly. I don’t believe I have ever eaten correctly for six consecutive weeks during my adult life.

I honestly feel I might be able to stick with it this time because of reporting on this blog. Do I think my readers are holding their breaths to learn of my results? No, that isn’t it, but somehow sending my progress out into the great beyond of cyberspace might keep me on track. During the last three weeks, I have lost six pounds, making me hopeful.

Another goal I announced was learning about meditation. I ‘ve made some phone calls, but, so far, I haven’t come up with any definite plan. If anyone out there knows a good teacher in OKC or Tulsa, please let me know. l m going to keep trying,

My third goal was to write 10,000 words during October on my unnamed ghost story for young adults. The novel is set in 1907 and takes place in the Overholser Mansion in Oklahoma City. I won’t use the Overholser name or any real facts about the family, but having a model to actually see helps me write. Johnny and I toured the house recently, and he took many pictures for me. The ones featured in this post are three of my many favorites. Looking at these pictures starts my imagination racing.

Dining Room

Music Room

Usually, I would write more than 10,000 words a month of a first draft, but I knew October was going to be exceptionally busy. So far I have only slightly more than 3,000 words, but the important work of getting to know characters is also done.  The story begins, “My mother thinks me mad. I think her heartless.” 

Only six writing days are left for me in October. That means I have to produce around 1,200 words each of those days. I think I can do it. Next month I plan to write 20,000 new words.

Anyone want to share your goals with me?    

G3-Growing

Friendship

GROWING: A crone keeps growing emotionally and intellectually. Right now I am spending a lot of time thinking and reading about relationships, both those with people around us and those on the other side of the curtain. I want to understand what makes relationships work. I am also interested in learning about meditation.

As a crone, I advise young women to work at developing friendships with other women. The temptation is to put all your emotional energy into your husband and children especially if you work fulltime outside your home. Don’t do that.

Today I am interested in learning about friendships. My friendships are vitally important to me, and they are divided into two categories. First are the old friends. I treasure two women with whom I went to elementary school, women I’ve known for well over sixty years. The picture above is of Darlene and me in our matching Easter dresses when we were in seventh grade. I am on the left. Several years ago, I opened my eyes in the recovery room after brain surgery to see Darlene at the foot of my bed.  I told the nurse, “She has been with me on all the important occasions of my life except my birth, and that is only because I am one month older.” Last summer, Darlene and Charlene, my other close friend from early childhood, came to my house for an overnight visit. At this slumber party, we didn’t do hair or nails. No, we took each other’s blood pressure!

I am blessed by still getting to spend time with Sandra, whom I remember meeting on a day when I was fifteen and starting a new high school. A few years ago, Sandra made me a lovely quilt I keep on my bed. It was she who talked me into going to a high school reunion where I ran into John, the man to whom I am now married. I appreciate the quilt every day and the husband almost every day.

Most of my old friends, though, come from college days. I had the same roommate for four years, and I don’t recall ever having a real disagreement. What would my life have been like without Jan? There’s Beverly, whom I mentioned in an earlier post, and several others, people I became close to in the dorm and at the Baptist Student Union. When I think of my college friends I think of a verse from the King James Bible that says, “…the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David…”

I met Martha soon after college, and she was my attendant when I married Paul. Martha fixed my hair for my wedding day and held me up through the illness that ended with his burial thirty years after the marriage. I also have very close friends from my days as a teacher, whom I think of as buddies from the trenches. You always feel close to your pals from the army. Three of those women left work to be with me on the day Paul died. We continue to share our joys and sorrows.

That first group became my friends almost by accident because they were in my class at school , shared life in the dorm, taught next door or just down the hall. Still, there were other girls in my class, others in my college dorm, others who taught in my building. What made me connect with certain ones?  Why do some people come into our lives to become a BFF while others slip away?

My second group of friends is made up of writers. These women I chose more deliberately, sometimes inviting them to my home for an evenings of talking about writing or weekend working retreats. Still, I wonder what draws me to some in my profession more than others. I belong to a big writers’ organization, around 100 at the last meeting, some published and some aspiring to publications. They are great people, but we can’t all bond deeply. What in particular pulls people together?

Some of my close writer friends are a good deal younger than I am. Pati is one of those. Someone once suggested that Pati and I had a mother-daughter relationship. We don’t. In the first place, I was fourteen when Pati was born. At fourteen, I barely knew how girls got pregnant, certainly did not know why they would want to do such an act. Still, even with the ones who are young enough to be my daughters, I don’t generally feel motherly. So why are we friends?

Jeannie, who is near my age and a favorite buddy, says, “We have to hang around with these young women. Otherwise, there might be no one left alive to come to our funerals.” Jeannie makes me laugh, but there has to be more than preplanning for funerals behind these friendships

So please tell me. Can you explain why you bond with some people and not with others who are perfectly nice? Try to sum up what drew you to your best friend or friends. Just tell me about friendship. I am quite interested.

G4 - Giving
Writers' Conference

GIVING: A crone keeps giving. Now that her personal responsibilities are fewer, she absolutely must give to others outside her immediate family. There are so many ways to give. I do most of mine through an organization called the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

Gwendolyn Hooks

Hannah Harrison

Last Saturday, over 100 people crowded into a room in Chandler, Oklahoma, to talk about writing. Although I had lots of help, the conference was largely my responsibility as the regional advisor of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.  The position, a voluntary one, fills with me with extreme exasperation. However, I’ve been RA, as we call it, for thirteen years because it also gives me deep satisfaction.

We have two conferences each year. Spring is our biggest gathering, alternating between Tulsa and Oklahoma City. Fall usually finds us asking the First Baptist Church and Reverend Rick Blackwell to let us use the church’s activity room because it is the largest one in town. They have never turned us down, and we appreciate their generosity. Chandler is between Tulsa and Oklahoma City, and it is my home town.

This time we got to hear three of our own local writers and three literary agents: Natalie Lakosil, Bradford Literary; Emily Mitchell, Wernick and Pratt Agency; and Danielle Smith, Foreword Literary.  They critiqued manuscripts, spoke about their work, and reviewed query letters, what authors use to get agents interested in their work.. Acquiring a literary agent is an important step in a writer’s career, and our writers were more than a little eager to hear these people. So eager, in fact, that I lived in dread during the last week or so before the meeting. If one of the agents cancelled, would the mob turn ugly? It could happen.  A couple of years ago, another RA, I think she was from Hawaii, said, “No one ever cancels on us.” Surprise, surprise! What does Hawaii have that Oklahoma doesn’t?  Sometimes people call us a fly-over state, and a speaker has to drag his or her bag through what seems like endless airports to get here.  The three agents did just that, and they were great speakers.

Our group learned a lot about getting noticed by an agent from the query letter session, and we had a lot to learn. I was pleased, though, because none of the queries were as bad as one I remember from a few years ago. In that letter, a member ended the query with a list of her work experience then added, “I have spent the last ten years caring for my dead mother.” Puts one in mind of Norman and Mother Bates, doesn’t it?

Three of our own people spoke also. First was Hannah Harrison who proved to be a delight. Extraordinary Jane, written and illustrated by our Hannah, will be published by Dial books in the spring.  That book will be followed by three others. Hannah is pretty extraordinary herself! She looks about fifteen, but she is the mother of a toddler, whose father once carried her into our sessions to be breast fed. It makes me smile to know Hannah got her start through our organization.

Nothing touches me more than our next local author’s latest story. Gwendolyn Hooks is a successful author who is a vital part of our local SCBWI group. It is Gwen’s latest book that excites me most. Vivien Thomas, the Man Who Saved Blue Babies, is an amazing story, and our Gwendolyn is just the person to tell it. During the 1940’s, Vivien Thomas, an African American man without a college degree, perfected the instruments and techniques for the first heart surgery. He stood behind the surgeon, Dr. Alfred Blalock to advise Blalock during that surgery, saving the first baby ever from the death sentence imposed by tetralogy of Fallot, also known as the blue-baby syndrome. Vivien, who was not allowed to enter the hospital by the front door, got no credit until the ‘60’s.

I would be touched by Gwendolyn’s book in any case, but the fact that my seven-year-old grandson Will was born with tetralogy of Fallot makes me even more moved by the story. Watch for Gwen’s book, published by Lee and Low in the spring of 2015. It will be an award winner!

At times there are those among our aspiring writers who push me to the edge. For instance, 30 of the 91 people who got critiques did not follow directions and had to be contacted at least twice to get things straightened out, some more than twice. One young man sent me three manuscripts instead of one and suggested that I choose the best one, as if I should read 300 manuscripts to make such decisions for everyone. One woman called me while I was having a college reunion at my house. Without inquiring as to whether or not I was busy, she asked, “How many free copies will I get from the publisher when I sell my book?” Turns out she had not written a word of the book! Talk about the cart and the horse.

On the day of the conference, my nerves are shot, leaving me ready to scream at people who invariably email me at the last minute for times and directions instead of looking on their confirmation notices or checking the website. This year I accosted a good friend for messing with the air-conditioning controls. I felt bad for yelling, but imagine a meeting where 100 people decided to adjust the temperature as they chose. I’ve even had people complain about not having the right color bread at lunch.

What gets to me most, however, are the emails that say more or less, “Tell me how to write and sell children’s books.”  Such requests remind me of the first time I did a presentation about being an author.  I had sold some short stories and was working on a novel. My daughter’s fourth-grade teacher asked me to speak on career day.  That afternoon Ginny brought home a big bag of what were supposed to be thank you notes. However, a little girl named Dana had business to conduct. She wrote, “How do you write a book? Tell Ginny, and she can tell me tomorrow at recess.”

Adults often seem to want the same short answer. Learning to write and publish is, of course, a process. The best way to learn to write for children and young adults is to join SCBWI.

I volunteer for that organization because I get more satisfaction than I do exasperation. I get to see people who have cried with discouragement shout for joy when they make their first sale.  I get to see writers like Ginger Reno struggle with a project that I know will be successful if they keep working. There are so many others, some just on the cusp of being sold, like Sharon Martin’s Accordion Girl, an amazing novel in verse. What a thrill for me to see these projects as they begin and as they become books that a child can read and love.

It takes many people to make our organization work, people like Helen Newton, my assistant, and like Darleen Bailey Beard, a successful author, who spent all day on Saturday manning the projector for power-point presentations. We have so many givers in our group.

The day ended with Pati Hailey, one of our amazing writers, leading us in a creative visualization exercise about success. Pati’s visualization exercises have been an important part of our fall conferences for a while. I believe strongly in the power of our own minds to lead us to success, and Pati has developed  her visualizations into an art form.  However, there are so many kinds of success. Giving to members of SCBWI makes me feel successful, no matter the amount of my royalty check, because I always get more back than I give. The best thing I get is friendship. My life is made rich by my friends from SCBWI.   

G1-Gratitude

GRATITUDE:   A crone feels gratitude. I’ve always been quick to list my many blessings.
However, for some reason lately I’ve begun to feel intense gratitude. Really feeling the gratitude has made a huge difference in my outlook. Sometimes while I am out on my walk, I lift my arms and say, “Eternal Spirit, Mother, Father, God, Thank you.”  Then I call out those things that fill my soul with thanksgiving. I mostly do this when there is no one about to hear, but if I am overheard, it won’t matter. It is hard to embarrass a crone.

  

    In It’s a Wonderful Life, George Bailey has a chance to see what his world would have been without him. Today I am wondering how my entire life would have been different without a certain person. His name was Gerald Wayne Hoover, and he was my big brother, older by fifteen years. Just about my earliest memory is of Gerald washing my feet in a basin of water. Evidently I, barefooted, had played in dirt or mud. “We’ve got to get out the toe jam,” he said, and I giggled each time he swiped the cloth between my toes.

     We were both blond and the only two of the eight children born to our parents who did not inherit their dark- brown eyes. Besides removing toe jam Gerald was willing to play subordinate roles in my games. I was often Tom Mix, the hero from my favorite radio program. While I rode my stick-horse around the house on dangerous missions, Gerald was stationary, playing the part of Tom’s sidekick, the villain, and even Tom’s female cook, whose name was, I believe, Chloe. I would pause in front of him, whisper the name of his character, and wait for him to look up from his book with the appropriate response.  

      There were lots of goodbyes and lots of homecomings during my early years with Gerald. I remember vividly the first goodbye. I was barely three, standing on the porch with my family. The porch had a damaged board not far from the step. Unable to watch him go down the step and toward the car, I kept my eyes on the broken wood. When I could bear the goodbyes no longer, I slipped back into the house, took Gerald’s pillow from his bed, and crept under a dresser with a long cloth. Hidden, I buried my face in the pillow, breathing in the smell of my brother’s Vitalis Hair Tonic. I also remember waking in the middle of the night or wee hours of morning to find Gerald, newly home from that first sojourn, sitting on the edge of my bed, staring down at me.

      Far too young and sensitive for what lay ahead, he served in Korea on a LST. Once during a time of great distress and rare openness, he talked to me about picking up the dead and dying. The agonies of war coupled with trauma suffered very early, were, I believe, responsible for his limitations. Gerald never married. He could not show affection to grownups and was unable to handle any kind of emotionally charged situation. After I grew up, he never hugged me. He paid a good part of my college tuition and sent me money when I was a young mother, staying home with my babies. He also had savings accounts for those babies when they went to college. Gerald never waited to be asked for help.

      I cannot recall his ever saying he loved me, but the love I saw in those gray-blue eyes was a constant in my life, so I wrote the first draft of this post on the anniversary of his birth. Gerald died a few years ago, quietly and alone just as he would have wanted it. Do I get messages from him sent from beyond that curtain? No, my brother was far too private and unobtrusive for such an intimate exchange, no poking about in anyone’s subconscious for him.

     The house where I live stands as solid as on the day it was finished 89 years ago, mostly because of the foundation. Gerald was part of my stone foundation. These days, the big Navy duffle that he called a seabag hangs on the back of my writing chair. Made of timeworn white canvas, it feels right as I lean against it. Thank you, big brother, and thank you, God, for giving Gerald to us.   

G3- Growing
Learning about Relationships

GROWING: A crone keeps growing emotionally and intellectually. Right now I am spending a lot of time thinking and reading about relationships, both those with people around us and those on the other side of the curtain. I want to understand what makes relationships work. I am also interested in learning about meditation.

        Today I am wondering about relationships with those who have died. Don’t misunderstand. I am not talking about séances. I am thinking about what ends and what continues.

       “Your relationship with Paul isn’t over,” my friend Beverly McBride told me after my husband of thirty years died. Beverly, who has been my close friend for more than fifty years, serves pro bono as my therapist. I’ve been pondering her statement off and on for nearly fifteen years. Yes, I am a little slow to form conclusions.

         Beverly would say that Paul still affects my daily life, and, of course, he does. We married in our twenties, in many ways growing up together. We have three children and seven grandchildren, and I am grateful that he lives in them. There were times during those first days without him that I felt his presence so strongly I tried to turn quickly enough to see him. I still feel him with me sporadically, but I no longer hope for a glimpse.

        In April of last year, I was at a dinner where my son, Dr .Benjamin Myers, received an award for his first book of poetry, *Elegy for Trains.  Tim Tingle, a Choctaw storyteller and author, happened to sit beside me. I told Tim a little about Paul, that he was also a poet and about his pride in his children. I did not tell him that I felt Paul’s presence intensely. At one point, Tim whispered to me, “I feel your emotions, leaving your body and passing into mine.” I smiled and said that I was very proud of Ben.

      Turns out, it was not my pride Tim felt. When I said goodnight to Ben that evening, I could not resist telling him that I felt his father with us at the dinner. Ben’s answer shocked me. “That’s what Tim Tingle told me,” he said. Ben went on to quote Tim as saying, “I never met your father, but I can tell you he was at the table tonight.’”      

   

    Does Tim’s Choctaw heritage give him an ability most of us lack? If you read his book, How I Became a Ghost, published by Roadrunner Press, you may think so. I do believe Tim has some very special gifts.  Is it his birthright that sets him apart, or is it simply his sensitivity, his ability to feel? I don’t know, but I want to, as my grandmother might have said, “study” on that.

    Let me tell you another story. Last year I was riding with my husband, John Calvin, through Shawnee, Oklahoma, a town about twenty-five miles from Chandler where we live. I’ve been in Shawnee thousands of times, the first time shortly after I moved to Chandler when I was fifteen.

      Suddenly on that trip with John, my father’s words flashed through my mind. At first, I thought it was a memory, something that happened when I was fifteen and going to Shawnee with my parents. You need a little background information about my family. My parents had eight children. Their second child died when she was seven months old. I was child number seven. My parents never spoke about Ramona, but I did know that my mother more or less had an emotional breakdown after the death. Over the years to come, my older sisters and I frequently discussed Ramona’s death. We wondered about the obvious effects that loss had on our parents and therefore on us all. Shortly before my mother’s death at almost 85, she called me Ramona all day as I sat beside her hospital bed.

     The words that came to me driving through Shawnee were, “This is the town where Ramona died at the ACH Hospital.” For a time, I thought my father must have said those words to me when I was fifteen. I know he would not have said them in front of my mother, so I supposed she had gone into a store, leaving us in the car. Maybe that is what happened. However, if he gave me that information, why did it never cross my mind again during the next 55 years? Why did I not repeat the facts to one of my sisters? Why did I not think of it during one of the thousands of trips I made to Shawnee to visit Paul’s parents or when I sat beside my father before his death in a Shawnee hospital?

      That day of the flash I called my sister Shirley to ask if she knew where Ramona died. She answered Seminole, a town several miles from Shawnee. Shirley said our parents lived on the other side of Seminole where our father worked in the oil fields, and Shirley remembered hearing that Ramona had been taken to the hospital there. I’ve always deferred to Shirley’s knowledge of family history, but I couldn’t let the question go.

       At home, I looked up the history of Shawnee on the computer. Sure enough, there had been a hospital in the city in those days called ACH. The next day I obtained a copy of Ramona’s death certificate. She died in Shawnee, after being under a doctor’s care there only a few hours.  My sisters and I pieced together the facts and believe Ramona was taken first to Seminole then moved to Shawnee. The information for the death certificate was supplied by an uncle, and I doubt that my mother could even remember the name of the town.

      Did I forget the conversation with my father for 55 years, only to have it flash into my mind when I was not thinking about Ramona, about my parents, or about Shawnee? I don’t know. Maybe the message was somehow received from beyond that thin curtain separating us from those on the other side. Maybe someone there wanted me to think about the baby girl whose birthday was only the day before the flash came.

     Elizabeth Barrett- Browning said, “*and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.”

     What do you think? Do relationships continue after death? Does communication? Please let me know your thoughts.   

          *Elegy for Trains, Ben’s first book, published by Village Books Press, Book number two, Lapse Americana, published by the New York Quarterly Foundation.

        *from Sonnets from the Portuguese, #43