2000-11-26 - 12:15 a.m.

Earlier this evening, I picked up a collection of Neruda translations by Stephen Mitchell, with a lot of odes and a handful of sonnets. I don't have anything to say about Sonnet 17 except that it's gorgeous.

And that my husband presented me with four roses in full bloom for no apparent reason. Two red, two white, all fragrant.

And that, while searching for a particular Nerudan ode, I stumbled onto Galway Kinnell's poem about "Oatmeal" and started cackling uncontrollably before I'd reached the tenth line. . ..