Elegy

        What are you writing in your notebook?
 
That Naipaul in midlife said of Jamaica
he thought he had made his trips there.
 
        Why are you writing that?
 
Because I understand, and it is poignant.
 
        Why so?
 
Because he was not what he had once been.
Nor was Jamaica.
 
        Hm.... What are you writing now?
 
That Gertrude Stein said of an American place
there was no there there.
 
         Why are you writing that?
 
Because I understand, and it is poignant.
 
        Hm.... Hm.

Oliver Rice | Mudlark No. 41 (2010)
Contents | The Work of Thinking, of Feeling