Later

I spent much of the free part of the night reading. It is remarkable how little I remember of what I read. My mind is elsewhere. I might as well have watched television.

A thin haze has dimmed the stars and blurred the half moon. It has been very still. The cat has remained sleeping in the closet all night. I preferred it when she slept in the living room chair, where it was easier to look in on her from time to time. It seems to me that the chair would be more comfortable, too, but I'm not a cat, so what do I know? I don't want to disturb her. Sleep is probably the last pleasure she has.

It is Saturday, and the early morning machines are few. The cars pass several minutes apart. But the crickets were active most of the night, their chirping having stopped only minutes ago, although there is yet no hint of dawn.

And just now, a breeze. It moves a mulberry branch which scrapes the edge of the roof and makes a sound resonate in the wall, as though something were trapped in there. Oh, the strangeness of waning nights.

Something I read tonight which I remember:

SENSATION

by Arthur Rimbaud


On blue summer evenings I'll go down the pathways
Pricked by the grain, crushing the tender grass--
Dreaming, I'll feel its coolness on my feet.
I'll let the wind bathe my bare head.

I won't talk at all, I won't think about anything,
But infinite love will rise in my soul,
And I'll go far, very far, like a gypsy,
Into Nature-- happy, as if with a woman.

--translated by Kenneth Koch