along the canal, in Lambertville, New Jersey, early this morning

Every now and then we get away, just for an evening and a morning. This morning we were here, along the canal, in Lambertville, New Jersey. A town of poets (Gerald Stern) and people who take the time to talk over coffee.

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I am a total and complete Doofus

as most anyone who knows me will attest.

Case in point:  It took me most of the morning to figure out how to get my NetGalley download of Bonnie Nadzum's debut novel Lamb (Other Press), which I am so looking forward to reading, into my little iPad 2. 

Confession:  I didn't end up figuring it out.  I called for my husband.  He arrived, in his white knight uniform.

It's a very good thing that I know how to handle a broom, run the laundry machine, fix an occasionally okay meal, and take stealthy swipes at the dust that falls, falls, falls.  

Otherwise, and seriously now:  I'm useless.

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Encounters with Gerald Stern

I joined my father on an errand to Lambertville, New Jersey, yesterday—a very beautiful, very hip little place with just the right balance of old and new.  "You know," I said, as we drove down one narrow street, "I once interviewed Gerald Stern in a house right near here."  As I was saying the words, recalling that lovely afternoon with the National Book Award-winning poet whose fluid, smart, resonant work has actually been known to cure my migraines, I found myself looking at Gerald Stern himself—on his front porch, in a wide chair, deep in a happy conversation with what appeared to be neighborly kids. 

"Don't stop!" I told my father, but still I craned my head, and later I walked the canal path behind the garden of Stern's house, remembering the conversation we once had. Butterflies were out in force.  The spill of gardens toward rain-soaked gulleys. The white horizontals of brief bridges.

Do you know Gerald Stern's work?  For if you don't, you must.  The opening lines of "He Said," from This Time, here:

Thank God for summer, he said, and thank God the window
was to his right and there was a wavy motion
behind him and a moon in the upper right corner
only four days old and still not either blowsy
or soupy.....

(find the poem, read on)

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