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APRIL 9
Ariel is in jail now, moving me to compose a poem:
SONNET TO A JAILBIRD
What startling sounds striking my ear that day
As soft we trod upon dry desert
sand.
A foreign language you might almost say,
Yet known to me as fingers on my hand.
Shakespeare! I
cried, for whom I've taken pains
To read for many years until he's now
As dear to me as blood is in my veins:
I've got to join that group no matter how!
The role of Prospero was offered me,
And who should be my
messenger, my joy...
My spirit, my Ariel faithfully?
A khaki-clad, ace-bandaged-up tomboy!
My tomboy
is an angel now in jail.
To free her thence my magic won't prevail.
APRIL 14
Long, hot nineteen-mile walk. Big meal and I'm still eating as I stand in the mail line. Eight pieces
of mail for me! One envelope contains many gorgeous photos I've taken on the March. What colleagues I have back home at that
little radio station, that KKUP - Livvy, June... They play my Peace March tapes on the air, they process my film and send
me the prints... They mail me home made cookies! My support group in Cupertino, California.
But what's this? A
joyous cry: "The jailbirds are home!" And there's Ariel, so much more beautiful than I remember her. We embrace.
But now a group of admirers gather round her and it soon becomes evident she's closest to that guy from New Zealand, a great
guy I do admit. She walks off with her arm round his waist, and I sit down in the dirt with a broken heart. There goes the
Peace March Girl of my Dreams. Forlorn and forsaken, I go to sleep.
Three more lost days in this diary. Is our journal keeper keeping to himself, like Achilles, licking his love wounds in his
tent? Ah, now he emerges! Here are some more entries:
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APRIL 18
Rest day, heavenly day! Big breakfast of tahini and honey, porridge and sandwich, plus banana bread.
I wash my hair and shave for the new photo ID. At three o'clock, four of us walk in warm sun to the river - a real river after
an eternity in the desert! All in our shorts we run and splash and jump and laugh and hold hands. Catching our breath on the
bank, we open a couple of packages I got from home: brownies from Livvy at the station and trail mix from Nancy, a listener
in Watsonville. Then it's play time for Kevin, Dan, Ariel and me. No, NOT Ariel - she's Viola now, that tomboy in Twelfth
Night. And I'm her Orsino! Just a few scenes from Act I, but beautifully done and lots of fun. A warm goodnight to Viola in
camp. But no goodnight for me. There's still a slide show this evening, then a poetry circle at which I read my new sonnet.
Fantastic day!
APRIL 19
Another glorious day! The first segment of the march I walk up front singing Gershwin and Jerome
Kern love songs. "Love walked right in." "Lovely to look at..." Yeah, I still feel that way about her,
even after what happened. But there she is! At the rest stop I find Ariel/Viola and we walk together the rest of the day.
We talk about Shakespeare of course, and about music. "Carmen" is the only opera she's ever seen and so I sing its
arias to her. She brings up the subject of fasting and I commit myself to a five or TEN day fast with her!
Then
at camp eight (!) Shakespeareans meet and go off to read. We sit in the shade and go through two full acts of Twelfth Night.
Again she's Viola to my Orsino. Even at supper I sit with her - I and her two other main suitors! Actually in this whole camp
full of great people, these are the two nicest guys. Funny how we all three sit so long, waiting each other out. No one wants
to go away. Twilight comes and dusk but still all three refuse to be the first to leave. Finally Don does get up and then
I do too. I leave her with Geoff. But she is mine now as much as theirs. She's mine MORE than theirs. She's my Ariel. She's
my Viola!
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