Zermatt

This poem was written after a dream I had. Here are some facts that explain where the images came from.

Calendered fabric is wrung through hot rolling pins which resemble rolled-up medieval manuscripts and calendars of the year. Both film rolls and player piano rolls have the same protective round shape. The word “calendered” comes from Greek kylindros, or cylinder.

It’s a Chinese tradition that rocks grind paper in a bowl, similar to a mortar and pestle grinding flax for bread.

Calendering makes textiles smooth and fine, such as Chambray, batiste, or cambric, producing lightly woven and lightweight blue cotton or linen. Blue jean shirts and elegant sheets can be made from it.

Chambray was made in Combray, the town of Proust’s childhood, featured in the first book of À la recherche du temps perdu.

Calendering can also be done to paper, plastics, silks and even lithium-ion batteries.

The monthly calendar comes from the calends, the first day of the Roman month when debts were shouted out, as in the Latin verb calare, to shout. The Church applied the word to its list of saints and saint days, which became the modern calendarium, or calendar.

The sheets in my dream were blue muslin or cambric. The dream was about loving someone forever, and on calendered sheets. Since it’s going to be forever…Like the bark of a tree, sheets are peeled off beds like skin off of onions; the past is documented in their layers, like rock strata or tree rings.

As I was dreaming of my princess, Cathy was leaving me a note that starts, “Prince of all Saturdays…” Her clever notes to me in the morning while I’m sleeping are like Carlos Williams’ “refrigerator poems” to his wife.