My First Bleg

 A "bleg" is, of course, when a blogger begs his readers for something, usually cash! But in this case, I have an unusual request. I have the highest respect for my readers who have a remarkable wealth of knowledge. This is one of the very, very few blogs where if I post a Latin tag, at least a couple of readers will step up and correct it. But it is not Latin I have for you today.

I recently revived an old habit: writing a daily journal and using a fountain pen. Honestly, I don't really see how you can write a journal with a ballpoint, though I once wrote one with a pencil. But I was very depressed at the time. Anyway, I dug out a couple of old journals from thirty years ago and discovered in one of them a single page poem, printed out from a word processing file, that I think I wrote even though it is not signed. My recollection of having written it is so dim that I want to ask you if you recognize it. It seems too good to be me and reads vaguely like Wallace Stevens. I will quote just part of it. Please tell me if you recognize it and who may have written it.

Leaving

Within two hours the scent of your skin

Was gone from my hand

Within a day the close vibration

Of your presence was stilled

My plane lofting

Into the dark

[skipping some stanzas]

Must memory of delight

So swiftly vanish

Into the night?

Memory is a bird with two wings

Faltering and twisting

Always to one side as it flies

One wing is short and the other long

That should be enough to identify it? Optimistically this reminds me of a Paul McCartney story. He woke up one morning with the tune to "Yesterday" going through his head. Going to the piano, he worked out the chords for it. But he was sure he had heard it somewhere so he kept asking people if they knew the tune. Nobody did, so he concluded that he actually had "written" it. He didn't have any lyrics for it, so for the longest time he called it "Scrambled Eggs."