12/14 Monday update

[Gay Haldeman]

Got a marvelous book of poetry and poetics in the mail Friday --  
_Unlocking the Poem_, by Ottone Riccio and Allen Beth Seigel. Riccio  
("Ricky") led a poetry workshop in Boston for 40 years; I attended  
for about 25 years, during the fall semester when I was teaching at  
MIT. Part of Ricky's teaching method was to issue challenges, like
"It is a dark night, with no moon. You see a bright star in the  
southern sky.
  It is blue -- the light is blue -- unmistakably blue, and it does  
not move.
  Any form, sixteen to eighteen lines. For extra challenge, try  
incorporating a rhyme scheme of your own devising."
I wrote this in response --
                      The Star
                (from and for Arthur C. Clarke)

That star flared up the week my mother died: Nova Scorpius, low in  
the southeast -- the brightest in nine hundred years, so bright you  
could see it with the sun up. "Star of Peace," they called it, the  
propagandists on both sides, because they signed their treaty then.  
At least neither one took credit for the light. That was God's  
doing . . . God the Beast of Sacrifice: seven planets spun around  
that star. Could any one of them have harbored life? The scientists  
say not. A hot blue star like that is just too young. There were no  
scientists at Bethlehem when in the east a star flared up so hot
      and bright and blue and young. That week the Earth
        was bathed in radiance. They say wise men came forth.
            Did planets burn to cinders in the light?
            And mothers die, to celebrate the birth?

(My little Xmas offering.) The book has 450 such assignments, in 337  
pages, along with illustrative poems from Ricky's students. Nine by  
yours truly.
I'm feeling better, after several days of reversal. Should hear from  
the doc today. Why do I always get sick on Friday?
Joe
PS from Gay:  He has an appointment Wednesday to get him into the  
surgical clinic.  We've been walking around the block every day, so  
he's getting stronger.
Love, Gay
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