& just to give you a sense of the difference in tone between Grassblade Light and July,
here's the opening segment of July:

         1 
  
         Gray skies on a late spring day.  A start.   
         In the parking lot.  Pawtucket?  Cumberland.
 Sound of someone hammering – what?
 Iron.  Waiting for my daughter there,

  
         her tennis lessons.  Nowhere.  Somewhere.
 Out in the open.  Gray skies, hollow
 hammering.  A hole.  A whole
 world (of lonesome rune-moss).

  
         Armor.  Wheel.  Hubcap.  Sky-
 scraper.  Redmen in moccasins
 on rooftops – cashmere
 lamb's quarters and yaks –

  
         kayaks – stitched all around again?
 Like a lake in a corral – your
 coracle – row, row, row
 we go.  I'd like to. . . snag

  
         you, elbow room.  A Huckleberry
 getaway somewhere.  Wide grass
 where the hurt surges – surges
 like active vitamin – Buick

  
         in high gear.  I leaned back
 against the health club wall.
 Low sub-suburb, lawless.
 Clouds moving, carboniferous.

  
         Spaces for eyes.  Flag in yard
 beside white aluminum siding.
 Farmhouse hemmed inside
 clutter.  Derelict, dreary.

  
         But that hammering was happy.
 I was going into the meadows
 again – lose myself for good.
 So long, Julius.  So long, Pap.

    
                                            7.15.99 (St. Henry's Day)