Patrick’s entry of 25 August 1962, in Wiesbaden, as found in pages 4 and 5 of his diary.
Diary – Wiesbaden, 25 Aug 1962
February Pruning
The first oxygen goes to feed the fire
that flames in the heart of us;
that flares our gaze out beyond
the near business of day to day.
Like the bonfire
which begins its own round grave,
the center goes first into coals,
then cinders, then smoking dust,
a crater ringed by useless fuel.
Burn from the outside in,
let the flesh go first and leave
nothing bur spirit to ignite
your glowing soul to supernova
o glorious cosmos!
before the last collapse into that darkness
from which all light is born.
Deya 1994
Con los Ojos Cerrados
Con los ojos cerrados
te veo.
Con ellos abiertos,
te miro.
Con las manos cerradas,
te hablo.
Con ellas abiertas,
te palpo.
Con la boca cerrada,
te hablo.
Con ella abierta,
te beso.
Te escucho y
suspiro,
respiro y
te inhalo.
Con los cinco sentidos,
TE AMO.
Luz Adriana Rojo Estrada
(Found in Patrick’s files, dated 12 Sep 2013)
Diary – 6 May 1962
Here are three pages from Patrick’s 1962 diary.
(Click on the images to enlarge them.)
Diary (page 1)
Continue reading “Diary – 6 May 1962”Wines
Here’s something a little different, a list of wines Patrick or Stephanie saved on 15 Nov 1998. I found it in his Dropbox account.
Alphonse Mellot
Menetou Salon 1997
Blanc (From Guy and Stephanie)
Bourgogne Aligoté
1997
mis en bouteille par
Bouchard Pere & Fils
Pinot Noir de Bourgogne
mis en bouteille par Thorin
1995
Cru Bourgeois
Chateau La Mouline
Moulis en Medoc
mis en bouteille au chateau
1995
Alphonse Mellot
Pouilly-Fumé
mis en b outeille par Alphonse Mellot a Sancerra – F. 18300
1997
Les Tourelles de Longueville
Pauillac-Medoc
mis en bouteille au chateau
1994
Merlot
vin de pays d’oc
mis en bouteille pour SVG
par Clement Pascalet aF 11590
1997
What Would You Like for Your Birthday?
Another letter from Patrick, this one dated 17 March 1975. Those were desperate times for me, but how much they shaped my future I can’t say.
Reconnecting with Patrick
Patrick sent me this post card in July 1975, trying to reach me in Phoenix. As a result, we reconnected in person after a decade’s absence. I was 19.
That summer trip and the events that followed deserve several chapters in a book I’ll likely never write.
I Hope That We See You Before Too Long
Here’s a letter from Patrick dated 24 January 1975, shortly after we’d resumed corresponding.
Shorty (Short Story)
Kids were fascinated by the way Shorty got around East End. In those days, the only paved road in our part of town was Highway 50, unless you count the short road up the hill to the Gospel Tabernacle. The remainder of roads were mud tracks, sometimes covered with what they called red-dog, the rose-colored residue from the burned-out slate dumps down at Minden. On these, cutting back and forth across what was once the Rhodes place, we regularly stubbed our toes if we went barefoot on our bikes, and new cars were turned into rattle traps in a few months. In the winter the depressions were yellow slime pits, or frozen plates between the jagged edges of red dog.
Continue reading “Shorty (Short Story)”shattered in the fountain
the moon
shattered in the fountain
swings west while we sleep
and dream:
the moon is shattered in the fountain.
let's wake the poet
with so many dreams
he will have things to say.
I have no idea when this was written, or if this is even Patrick’s. It was at the top of the file called poems.doc, which contained a collection of his writings.
Nathaniel Hawthorne has a book called The Shattered Fountain so perhaps this is the reference, or perhaps even a quote.
For what it’s worth, I’ve been told that Nathaniel Hawthorne was my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. (Not sure how many “greats” belong there but I think it’s five.)