I actually agreed with something Coach DI said at practice this morning. That's
rare enough that I thought I'd better make a note of it. He had us row in two
eights today, one men's and one women's. I was initially disappointed not to row
the four, but he told us he wants us to become more used to set boats, and that
not rowing together was the reason we didn't win more races on Saturday. He wants
the men and women each to have a steady eight that can be broken up into four
fours, so we will practice in both configurations. Makes sense to me.
Then he topped off this unusual run of logic by letting practice go too long and
getting everyone (else) to work late.
I keep thinking there are a couple of poems in me, about the events of September
11, and about rowing, and how smooth and easy it looks while all the time you're
working furiously, and how much of life is like that. Like a duck swimming. But
every time I try to put the ideas into words, nothing comes out, Or I get a few
lines but then no more:
This morning my desert's cerulean sky
Was shrouded grey and sullen, a rare thing.
How long will it take before gray billows in the sky
Cease reminding me of smoke over twinned towers?
See
what I mean? I think the problem is that both ideas are to big for me. If I have a
strength at all, it may be lapidary detail, like the reflections in my namesake
bits of glass.
Also, I've been reading bits of Wallace Stevens and
Yeats, who seem to be the two modern poets who have the most
href="http://dichroic.diaryland.com/loveofbooks.html">influence on current
writers, with Frost a close third. A humbling, if educational experience.