#132

I am on track. Or what you call the line. Stephen in those harder days – what it was he knew at night. There are vistas past, lights on posts. I stop, or I might still, to watch the rain refill the river.

In Blake’s room, Adrian cuts along a square path the photographs he’s taken. A pile of picture-pieces heaped in the center of the table. #27, #156, #322: supplements. Blake’s 1000 stories folded thrice and stamped. Is it tea they drink or coffee as Adrian works? Translucent envelopes and sealing wax in the bag he’s brought (the bag Blake lent him). Lamplight. And Blake with camera rises, the snips of color in Adrian’s hand. From a chair, he snaps a picture, down. A portrait of an artful scholar.

So what say you Adrian, from your place in Van Pelt’s center? All the Modern times, their congregation. Your frame the frame that shines. Oh, I have seen you thin and silvered amongst my books and in my class. I have made your story mine.

The wind. It is a father’s hand. And what am I but wild? Kingly in my folly. Even Evan would laugh. So where are the haunts of muses? Bustle briskly by, they mutter. Bustle briskly by.