I slept well last night. I do wake up intermittently but this allows me to remember dreams. I see the dreams as confirmation that I feel back asleep. My last dream this morning was funny. The night before I return to my weekend duties at church, I had a church dream. I remember waking at home (in the dream) and realizing that I had performed a concert which had been taped. I didn’t remember the concert. I was watching the tape of it with some interest. The piece seemed to be a transcription of a Bach cantata movement. There were people in the choir and orchestra from both of my last churches.

The upshot about the performance was that I didn’t bring the choir in on its entrance and subsequently they did not sing. I was buried in the score (judging from the tape) and conducting the instrumental ensemble. One of my sopranos from my present church was oddly playing oboe. On the tape, she was playing her part loudly and adding rhythmical stuff to try to get my attention about my failure to bring in the choir.

I remember the tape had a narration and a sort of story line that began with choir members square dancing. I also realized that a husband and wife team were called from the concert due to the death of their son.

Happy back to work day!

As a result of Eileen’s hard work, the rack is back over our stove with our new pots hanging on it.

We haven’t decided if this is where we want to hang pots permanently. Eileen had an idea that a wall rack to the right of the stove might be more practical and certainly easier to clean.

But I do like the new pots!

I am being drawn toward historical poetry and music lately. I spent a lot of time with John Clare this morning. He was brought to my attention by his appearance in Alan Moore’s weird and beautiful book, Jerusalem. In it, Moore puts the ghost of Clare at the St. Andrews (Mental) Hospital in Northhampton. This is historical. Clare seems to be the subject of some rehabilitation due to the beauty of his poetry and his subjects of the poor and ecological awareness.

I looked him up in the my beloved Oxford Book of English Verse and he has one poem there, “Written in Northhampton County Asylum.” This poem later is found with a different title on the Poetry Foundation website (and other places). I Am! by John Clare | Poetry Foundation

I spent the morning poking around learning about Clare: