Nothing's Going to Change My World

It's been over one week since I've been in New Orleans. Today, for instance, I trekked over a mile across snow in my jungle combat boots to the university. I now live Downtown, with a new address, which I'll happily give to anyone willing to pay postage for communication.

Mostly what I do is look at my watch, which has two beautiful timezones on it. It keeps me steadfast. I know that no matter what I do here, it will be a form of waiting. Winter, I've heard, is long in the northern lands. You've ruined me, Wallace Stevens.

I am an artist here. Specifically an American artist in Canada. A Cajun artist in Acadie. But what I really am is an imposter. An artist in artifice. I am not a cultural martyr. And although this project is for making a link between these two cultures, their burden will not be my yoke.

I am saying this as I come to a close on my second sequence within Evangeline, which is the great journey North. I have three or four poems left to it, maybe eight or nine pages, depending on my stamina. Again, Stevens, o picture of the poet as a virile youth. You might as well hang me for redundancy.

In any case, I have a reading in Moncton on the 24th. A week later, I will be in New York, preparing for Lent.