Author’s Note

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) yearned to put “a whole book in a page, a whole page in a sentence, and this sentence in a word.” Despite—because of?—this ambition, Joubert never published any book at all.

About my own yearnings, author seventy-two to going on seventy-six, these pages seemed, variously, daily craft pursuit; house being constructed; mania; self-directed homeschooling; word music being composed. Also self-sentenced “hard labor.” Also life raft. Also, arguably, spiritual practice.

Less ambitious than Joubert, I was tempted—merely—to convey what I could about aging, the fate of the ocean, our political moment, the writing life, family, and words. Meanwhile, there were sections revised but recalcitrant. Mulling if I should wait for laggards, I hoped to stave off a posthumous publication date. What’s here, then, is an interim report. Work in progress for the meantime / meanwhile—like the currently ongoing self.

Readers will see I address my concerns repeatedly from different points of entry. Repetition compulsion? Tenacity? You’ll decide. (Poet James Merrill: “It’s madness to think of an audience. It’s madness also not to think of one.”)

Meanwhile, something less abridged soon? Years ago, an opinionated fellow—aesthete without an art, is how I came to think of him—told me I’d never stop writing. Never—n(ot)ever. Since he’s “no longer with us”—silenced by his own hand—we’re unable to further discuss whether or not he was correct.

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Demos (Latin), “the people.” In early 2020, as I did last revisions, epidemic became pandemic. Epi, “among.” Pan, “all.” Here, then, you’ll find nothing about the heroes, victims, benedictions, or maledictions the virus elicited. Survivor-reader you, hopefully disembarked from the infected ship of state on which we were trapped, might even read this in a post–COVID-19 world.

Reverted to ordinary life? If so, what new normal? Except for victims and loved ones, wars and plagues seem too soon left behind. Life for the living! After prophylactic hand-washing and wringing of hands, we’re to emerge transformed? Or, as sleepwalking / mind-infected Lady Macbeth put it, “What, will these hands ne’er be clean?”

In his very last poem, Jim Harrison wrote, “Man shits his pants and trashed God’s body.” With luck, in the de-quarantined post-pandemic, those of our squabbling, bickering kind who’ve been spared will better care for other members of our species. And/or, will do more to save the rest of Creation from us. Meanwhile, some of my writerly obsessions the five years before epi became pan may shed light on the madness that ensued.