Poet in a Rainstorm

An impending natural disaster really gets me to thinking what objects are most important to me,  Nothing has happened yet; but due to location of our apartment, it is quite possible we will be flooded, if only slightly. Today, my friend mentioned photographs and I realized, at this point what an alien concept that is to me. I have so many few old photos laying around at this point. But, as I cleaned throughout the day, things started to make an appearance. Certainly, my most precious photograph is of me sitting next to the baby Emma (my sister who died) in the 'special' park in Visalia; then there is the one of William Everson in the '70s in his bear-skin phase; the one of Peter and Bill: and the one that my ex-lover John took of my son Jeffrey & I in Washington Square park. There are objects that certainly can't get hurt - my rocks, Dion's copper Empire State Building statue... then one's mind turns to the Sisyphus rock of every writer - the books. How does one begin categorize these objects. I've only been able to divide in my mind between 'replacable' and not 'replacable.' The irreplaceable might be the signed Tarn books, the Eigner books, the art books, the first edition of Ariel, the guide to the Maximus poems, all the Duncan's. The there is the uber-not replaceable - the signed Larry Eigner, the first edition of U of Ca Maximus, and, most, the first edition of Visions of Gerard by Jack Kerouac. If I had to take something with me - it would be that, the Basquiat catalog, my Susan Bee painting, and my vinyl copy of the soundtrack to 1984. Mildly random choices. Sort of; not really.

What scares me the most is the possibility of evacuation. Just exactly, with a husband and child, two cats and two pugs (one of whom is senile and barely house trained) am I supposed to go??? Note here: I asked my husband if we could emergency foster an animal and the answer was a resounding NO!

On the street today, both Jim & I felt the same thing. Brooklynites going about their business, but with a certain aura of confusion. Kind of like what do we do? It's hard to take it seriously because we have been through so many false alarms with so many snow storms (the mayor actually stopped having snow days for a few years because he called a school snow day on a day it actually ended up not snowing). It's hard not to take seriously though too. So we fill bottles of water, buy snacks and dogs food and wait. First they tell us put tape on the windows, then they tell us that's a waste of time. They were out of flashlights, so we've resorted to religious candles, all the while watching Sons of Anarchy and dreaming of Lodi weather.