I was tickled when I turned to read a morning poem by Anthony Hecht and it was dedicated to Derek Walcott, both poets I am currently reading. It’s called “Terms.” The dedication does not appear in the linked poem. It’s a clever poem which exploits a pun-like device of using a word in more than one meaning (and sometimes pronunciation). Like “close” in the two phrases “Holidays, books, and lives draw to their close,” and “Close your eyes.”

After reading it, I had to pull out my Walcott and continue reading his works. “Homecoming” is a poem about Walcott’s split heritage and allegiance. It begins by evoking someone named Sesenne.

It turns out she is a real person or rather was a real person when she lived.

Today and tomorrow I want to knock off a few tasks for Mom. I am dreading contacting Social Security because I know they have rules about only speaking to the person concerned. They have hoops to jump through to obtain authorization. When I have investigated these previously they involved Mom, something that isn’t exactly possible at this point.

I think today Eileen is planning to tag whatever we want Two Men and Truck to bring Mom’s room at Maplewood to our home. We are just about done with going it. The next step is to bring in Two Men and a Truck for an estimate. I also want them to take away my broken treadmill sitting on my porch.

I am getting the usual Spring itch to clear clutter. Eileen and I discussed trying to develop a more gradual approach to this and try to a little bit at a time. It was in that spirit that I took a box of books to the library and a stack of stuff to Bibles for Mexico on Saturday.