My present for my sixtieth birthday came one week late, an Obama victory! October was a lovely month here in Connecticut. I've come to enjoy the Guilford Poets Guild workshops, and I have new material to write about. For Columbus Day weekend we went up to Gilmanton, saw our good friends there, gawked at the colorful leaves. If here in Connecticut the colors might be rated an "8," in New Hampshire everywhere is a "10."
Towards the end of the month we went north again to Boston for a few days. Attended a Jordi Savall-Hesperion XXI concert in the very beautiful Saunders Hall on the Harvard Campus. We stayed at the Hyatt Harborside, had fun getting around town on the T, walking through East Boston (great breakfast place, 303), and taking the ferry across the bay. We had brunch with Vicki and Steve in Back Bay, and they took us to the top of the Prudential Center for a birthday flan.
My new poetry friend and neighbor, Jane, is going to whip me into shape. Yesterday morning we played tennis with two guys she had arranged to join us. Since I hadn't played in probably five years or so, it took me awhile to get warmed up. And my serve is still iffy. But my net play was pretty darned good. I'm going to think about continuing this line of exercise, but I think I'd rather just rally with Jane. Going through the humiliation of playing actual games, and having to actually get serves in, is too much pressure. On election day I walked up Long Hill Road two miles to our voting place. Then Bill drove up the hill, I took the car home, and he walked back! We're trying "enforced marches" as an exercise routine. Of course, when we get in shape, we'll just walk the 4 or 5 miles, to town and back together for instance. Steve and Vicki can be our inspiration. They already cover 4 miles about 3 times a week, so I'm sure we can do it. In the meantime, we pass all these lovely streets of Guilford on our walks. Makes you want to break into song:
Guilford Song
The birds all knew the local language—
two short bursts, and then a moment of silence
A pairing of adjective-noun, as if the subject
could not be left unattended
flag marsh
The frogs tossed out all sorts of ideas
but kept to the code
still meadow
The cemetery didn’t wish to limit itself
to just one name
Foote-Ward
A rhythmic two-step along the shoreline
salt marsh
Her Puritan forebears wouldn’t have known
anything more complicated
flat meadow
tangling forbidden anyway
nut plains
two friends, a quickening of the pulse,
you lay down a card and I’ll tell you what it is
red queen fox glove hearts ease
saw mill red coat long hill
