Time, at Civitella, is elastic: great geological spans and quick bird flights. You are cared for during your stay in soulful ways – stomach and spirit. Most importantly you are left alone to work with affection and concern in a place that is rich with history, music, art, language. My debt to Civitella is large and enduring.
I turned my back on the color fields. I turned my back
on the abstract, New York, the blue/red adjustments
and the inflamed men, the men inflated with trust
and acts of god and gorgeous manly man drag.
I turned my back on the furious magazines [I could
read], their reds and blues and frequencies I used
[I could use] to spin myself into an ecstasy, white
dervish, in custody of a story that begins troubled
with power, then the trouble is you as you spin,
a dance that ends with what kind of man I am.
