Dear List,

Today's regular mail brought me three special packages. A copy of "The Nabokovian" ( number 57), Noel Langley's "The Land of Green Ginger" and Richard Wilbur's "Collected Poems - 1943/2004" ( these two came from Nabokov-List friends living abroad).

I would have not tried to post a third message today if I hadn't leafed through some of the more recent poems by Wilbur [ In Strong Opinions VN wrote: " I seldom experience nowadays the spinal twinge which is the only valid reaction to a new piece of great poetry - such as, for example, Richard Wilbur's 'Complaint,' a poem..."(1969, interview with A. Whitman) ] and found one entitled Gnomons, a word Carolyn Kunin mentioned today when writing about "Ada", with sciotheryst shades and measured shadows, to boot.

Richard Wilbur's 1987 poem suggests a link between "Gnomons" and "Pale Fire", by a sparrow's flash through a lighted room, from one dark void to another as described by the Venerable Bede ( cf. Priscilla Meyer's and B.Boyd's book on Pale Fire for a more complete information)

I don't know if it can be fully reproduced here, I'll type it and our EDS will decide what can remain, what has to be deleted from it to protect copy-right issues. I hope the first eight lines, at least, may get posted...

GNOMONS

In April, thirteen centuries ago,

Bede cast his cassocked shadow on the ground

Of Jarrow and, proceeding heel-to-toe,

Measured to where a head that could contain
The lore of Christendom had darkly lain,

And thereby, for that place and season, found

That a man's shade, at the third hour from dawn,

Stretches eleven feet upon the lawn.

This morning, with his tables in my hand,

Adapting them as near as I can gauge,

Foot after foot, on Massachusetts land,

I pace through April sunlight toward a wall
On which he knew my shadow's end would fall