and the planet mars took me home


Alone at night, when I was twelve years old, I looked at the planet Mars and I said, ‘Take me home!’ And the planet Mars took me home, and I never came back. So I’ve written every day in the last 75 years. I’ve never stopped writing. – Ray Bradbury

I’ve been reading a lot of screen plays lately. They’re good stand-ins for poetry. But only when they’re done the way they ought to be done. The Royal Tenenbaums, Lars and the Real Girl. I read these every year. They make me happy. I have in my hand a poem my grandmother wrote the day she turned my age. Disbelieving the birthday that I’ve now passed, the one Jane Smiley called the age of grief. Others arrive there sooner. Almost no one arrives much later. She was so young my grandmother, when she was my age. Ray Bradbury is not young. He is awesome. Listen…

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