Here is a previous Bruce post.

And it was Bruce who introduced me to the work of Lucille Clifton.

Over there on the Facebook, a man named Randy asked about something I had written about screen doors in one of my books. As far as I know, the only thing I’ve ever written about my screen doors is how they are in constant disrepair, and if I want one fixed or hung decently, I have to hire the job out. But maybe Randy was remembering this, from Truck: A Love Story:

I eat in my favorite spot, the big green chair in the living room beside the bookcase with a view through the screen to Main Street.  I can’t imagine a finer moment than to be here in this old chair with this fresh alive food in my lap, all the greenness and the garlic and the sounds of the day easing through the screen on the back of a breeze.  The bruschetta recipe comes from an email printed and pinned to my recipe board.  It’s from the poet Bruce Taylor, an above-average hedonist who once stood by an open window in a bar on a spring afternoon and said, “Sometimes the best thing to do with a beautiful day like this is to spend some if it sitting in here looking out.”  There is something about listening to a day through a screen that infuses the moment, as if the steel mesh slows the day down, lets us bathe in it a bit more.  A screen seems to filter the harshness from the outside noises and they reach your ear softened.  It will be best if the sound is coming to you over a varnished wooden floor decorated with a strip of sunlight; the flat surface, however artificially imposed, is reassuring in the face of entropy and has the added advantage of being made from trees and blessed by light.  It is exquisite to sit here in this perfect moment, eating food that I – a black-thumb gardener – have coaxed from seed to fork.  I am humbled that in the face of all chaos, I should have this plain, priceless moment.

And then the nap.  Set the bowl on the floor, tip the head back, take the glorious option of not fighting the heaviness in each eyelid.  Maybe you shift your shoulders a little to get just right, and then there you are, sleeping sitting up in the middle of the afternoon of a perfect day.  If you ride the wave perfectly, catch it on the downslope, snag that catnap where you dip into unconsciousness and then rise smoothly back to wakefulness after only a few minutes yet having shut down long enough to defragment the mind, O, then that is a glorious thing not to be replicated with any long snore.  You come awake with freshness and clarity and the strip of sunlight has shifted, and you are living punctum in the present, saudade before it is sad.

Here is Bruce reading the brief, lovely, “In Class Exercise”:

And here is “Our Body.”

While down in the pole barn digging corn cobs out of the bed of my frozen truck at the crack of yesterday’s below-zero dawn, it struck me that a warmer truck post might be in order.

Hoping they’ve weathered the cyclone.

I met Ryan once, when he helped me lug some sound gear into the library in Eagle River, Wisconsin. I didn’t know him, I just picked him out of the audience because he looked like he could lug things.

Before I send you to this link, I have to qualify a couple of things, especially for those of you aware that I haven’t quite perfected walking on water:

1. The round-trip was much shorter than indicated.

2. The snowstorm was pretty much see-through.

Also, just so I don’t  misrepresent my service, while I am indeed an active member of the local fire department, I am part of the first responder unit (howdy Emergicare crew!) and not currently driving fire trucks.  Although I get to sit in the fire truck at active structure fires, which is not a bad deal when the weather’s hinky.

OK.  That was throat-clearing.  Thank you to Suzanne, who patiently arranged this meeting.  Thank you to Kyle of Amble Down Records who lent his Apple gear, high-speed internet, and office space at an early hour.  Thank you to Alissa, who took care of the details.

But above all, thank you to the members of the book club.  These are folks who gather in unique circumstance, and that they should engage me in such a thoughtful and energetic manner was humbling.  As you can see from Suzanne’s report, the questions were specific and entertaining.  I appreciate having been able to spend a little slice of time in the basement of Bethel Lutheran Church, even as I sat on a couch many snowflakes away…

If I did drive the ol’ Binder down there, I’d probably need three days, two barrels of oil, and three sets of tools…

Just got an email from a reader who writes:

i just finished Truck. i came across it accidentally at the library while looking for books on anti-lock brakes. go figure, huh. but what a grand stroke of luck.

And a grand stroke a luck for me as well.  Because as I wrote here, it’s not the first time my Truck has been stuck where you might least expect it.