Moby Dick

What happened was an acquaintance called late last night with some questions about the book. I knew right where my Modern Library copy was, with the Rockwell Kent illustrations. I answered his questions but didn't bother putting the book away. Other than a nice walk to gather mushrooms, I spent the entire day reading Melville. Two lovely Goldfinches in the blackberry canes today. The canes are leafed. The birds were so yellow, I lost my place. Last night's left-overs on toast for breakfast (potatoes, chorizo, eggs). I had one last beef filet wrapped in bacon in the freezer, so in the interest of rotating my stock I got it out, before my mushroom walk, which is being a little cocky. But I did find a nice mess of them in a classic morel situation. You see one. You don't move. You stare at the ground for at least five minutes, then you harvest six or eight, then, being incredibly careful about where you step, you move eight feet. I cut them off right at ground level and flick off any little bits of leaf-mold with the tip of my knife. I never wash them. Before I put one in the little mesh bag I keep tucked under my belt, I thump it once or twice, to spread the spore. Sliced and fried in butter, then add a small spoonful of bacon fat, salt and pepper, and thicken. I often add finely minced shallot. This is the gravy of your dreams. Starting in High School I realized people from New Jersey or New York, when I started having friends stay over for dinner at Mom and Dad's, hadn't been raised on gravy. I went over to their houses too, but a dry pork chop and unseasoned peas never really caught my attention. In our poverty I was use to crab-boils, fried fish and hush-puppies, salt-cured ham slices with red-eye gravy, and vegetables that had been slow-cooked with salt-pork. Try this. Get a bunch, one each, of collard, mustard, and turnip greens, chop them, wilt them in a cup of white wine, fry some salt pork with an onion, add that, add a caramelized red pepper, cook off the moisture, roll them into balls; to be Jewish is dumplings, roll them in breadcrumbs and fry them. Chicken soup is well and good, but a dumpling is concrete evidence. When Ishmael woke with Queequeg's arm around him. When Charity lowers in a boat, heading back to Nantucket, she is the last female we see, other than Starbuck's dreams, but even Ahab had a wife and child. It's not the moralizing or the archaic language (though I do enjoy them) but the ballast that draws my attention. The try-works, the jaw-bone of a sperm whale, the absolute craziness of three years at sea without the sight of land. I wouldn't rule out anything, but I can't imagine compromising my position when it comes to just kicking back, putting my feet up, and reading Lorca in the light of a sputtering candle. It's strange, the satisfaction I draw from reading poems late at night. I read Birchard, or Skip Fox, B or Stephen, it's passing strange that I know so many poets. And stranger still that I actually understand what they're referring to. I think about transparences for a while. I'm trying to be clear here.The gel is 'bastard amber' a pinkish earth-tone that makes everyone look younger.