chiefs in it when I traveled—The top part of the shaker, my holy cup, and had it for five years now—And other belongings so valuable compared to the worthlessness of expensive things I’d bought and never used—Like my black soft sleeping sweater also five years which I was now wearing in the damp Sur summer night and day, over a flannel shirt in the cold, and just the sweater for the night’s sleep in the bag—Endless use and virtue of it!—And because the expensive things were of ill use, like the fancy pants I'd bought for recent recording dates in New York and other television appearances and never even wore again, useless things like a $40 raincoat I never wore because it didnt even have slits in the side pockets (you pay for the label and the so called “tailoring”)—Also an expensive tweed jacket bought for TV and never worn again—Two silly sports shirts bought for Hollywood never worn again and were 9 bucks each!—And it’s almost tearful to realize and remember the old green T-shirt I’d found, mind you, eight years ago, mind you, on the DUMP in Watsonville California mind you, and got fantastic use and comfort from it—Like working to fix that new stream in the creek to flow through the convenient deep new waterhole near the wood platform on the bank, and losing myself in this like a kid playing, it’s the little things that count (clichés are truisms and all truisms are true)—On my deathbed I could be remembering that creek day and forgetting the day MGM bought my book, I could be remembering the old lost green dump T-shirt and forgetting the sapphired robes—Mebbe the best way to get into Heaven.
I go back to the beach in the daytime to write my “Sea,” I stand there barefoot by the sea stopping to scratch one ankle with one toe, I hear the rhythm of those waves, and they're saying suddenly “Is Virgin you trying to fathom me”—I go back to make a pot of tea.
Impatiently chewing
The Jasmine leaf
