Anticipation and Slumberland

It's snowing in St. Louis and all I want to do is drink hot tea and read Frank O'Hara.

Lately I've been thinking very seriously about expectations. Those I have of myself and other people and how much it can hurt when they aren't fulfilled. I truly think it's better, though maybe not possible, to have no expectations and to make no attempt to anticipate future events. Aren't the best nights the ones when we have no plans? I love the freedom that comes from complete openness. Although, really, I think it's easier to have very low expectations and be pleasantly surprised. I will try to be more open. I will try not to anticipate.

Anyway, this seems appropriate tonight. I want to hibernate in Frank's poems for a while.

Aus einem April

We dust the walls.

And of course we are weeping larks

falling all over the heavens with our shoulders clasped

in someone's armpits, so tightly! and our throats are full.

Haven't you ever fallen down at Christmas

and didn't it move everyone who saw you?

isn't that what the tree means? the pure pleasure

of making weep those whom you cannot move by your flights!

It's enough to drive one to suicide.

And the rooftops are falling apart like the applause

of rough, long-nailed, intimate, roughened-by-kisses, hands.

Fingers more breathless than a tongue laid upon the lips

in the hour of sunlight, early morning, before the mist rolls

in from the sea; and out there everything is turbulent and green.

Totally expectation-free,
Michelle

PS- that's a page from Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland. Isn't his style dreamy?