October 9, 1971 - As Good As Life Can Get

This is as good as life can get. There is no man in it. So ----- oh, I miss J. I miss, I miss, but here is - what more, what more is there. Here is beauty - far & distant & present beauty - fat, half moon with rounded out half, silvering air & water, filling all there is - good company, good fun -

The water swelled in ridges - rolling, rolling - as tho something were moving laterally under a textured sateen cover.

I woke up in the dark & could not sleep further so I sat at the table to watch the day come & push the night away. Across the water at the edge of the world clouds were massed in an opaque black bank looking as much like cliffs & hills and land I knew was not there. As light came on it thinned & broke & rose above a curious band of fog, it seemed, that took on the rosy orangeness of the day's dawn sky, grading from deep orange to palest blue. A single leaning birch, a simple silhouette of fine black lines against the delicate sky. Now color is almost gone from the blue, clouds have raised, fog has become only distance and still sun has not shown itself. I am tired & will try to sleep again.