Mr Collins spoke at length Wednesday night and I listened intently to almost every word. It might come as a surprise that listening requires so much energy, but it does. The reason it was so draining was because I was inspecting and harvesting the words ideas that drifted my way. My ambition was to etch the better phrases in my mind, both the words themselves but also the rhythm, tone and pace with which they were delivered. Standing outside the crowded sunken garden, peering over the wall as if seeing his head made it easier to make out what he was saying, I probably appeared calm even though my mind was frantically spinning the information around in my hands, looking for blemishes where there were none and then having to quickly decide which to try and preserve even as a fresh volley was launched over the rugged rock barrier.
Neither he nor the phalanx of introducers cautioned us against recording or memorizing what was spoken that evening. And yet somehow, even if I had been able to preserve exactly what was said, I'm not sure I have the authority to repeat anything. My inability to perfectly repeat what I just said, let alone the utterances of somebody else, helps preserve the unspoken covenant with poet. What I can recall are mere snatches – haikus about eel in a sushi house, a dog driven to madness by the sound of his tags, losing track of the names of rivers and book characters, an unhinged moth above the lovers' bed, and imaging a musician handing over a saxophone to an audience member.
What Mr Collins didn't share was this. One path for solving a problem is by walking is by turning away. Diogenes the Cynic is reputed to have avoided an annoying individual and situation by leaving it behind. Rather than ponder and wander, abandoning a person or problem does in fact serve as another way to enact the "make our way by walking" maxim.
