Frank O'Hara, we only had you for forty years. Cambridge It is still raining and the yellow-green co
Frank O'Hara, we only had you for forty years. Cambridge It is still raining and the yellow-green cotton fruit looks silly round a window giving out winter trees with only three drab leaves left. The hot plate works, it is the sole heat on earth, and instant coffee. I put on my warm corduroy pants, a heavy maroon sweater, and wrap myself in my old maroon bathrobe. Just like Pasternak in Marburg (they say Italy and France are colder, but I’m sure that Germany’s at least as cold as this) and, lacking the Master’s inspiration, I may freeze to death before I can get out into the white rain. I could have left the window closed last night? But that’s where health comes from! His breath from the Urals, drawing me into flame like a forgotten cigarette. Burn! this is not negligible, being poetic and not feeble, since it’s sponsored by the greatest living Russian poet at incalculable cost. Across the street there is a house under construction, abandoned to the rain. Secretly, I shall go to work on it. -- source link