for Tory and A.S.

Essential it was that she was a foreigner –
Misreading, mistaken and thus so much warmer.
And as I from her her was equally estranged –
Oh we passed such pleasant, such comfortable days!

Younger, she had fears of our getting too engaged.
Older, I had fears of that unavoidable day –
When she, I or both would with clarity see,
And this love we enjoyed could no longer be.

— Poem and drawing by William Eaton.

Please note that the drawing is not of anyone specific to whom the poem might refer. These people were seen and drawn one rainy April Sunday in the Cascade Café at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Now available from Amazon: Art, Sex, Politics

& now featured on Snowflakes in a Blizzard

A new, provocative collection of essays. William Eaton, the author of Surviving the Twenty-First Century, shares the pleasures of questions, tastes, reading and more visual arts. “That we are animals, that is as sure as ever. How savagely we behave! And how affectionately rub up against one another. How, desperately, make love?”
Five-star review: “ . . . remarkable collection of essays. . . . insights which carry the reader into a world of mindfulness. One of the pleasures of reading a book by Mr. Eaton is to witness the author peeling away the layers of his stories. His essay concerning “savoring,” for example, first touches on food habits, yet is in fact a call to live with intention; to savor life as one would savor a meal. . . . lovely prose . . . delightful book.”

Kind words about Surviving: “Entertaining, yet packs a quiet intellectual wallop. . . . so thought-provoking and poetic I didn’t want it to end . . . beautiful and wise and moving . . . engaged, non-doctrinaire, well-read, independent-minded. . . . William Eaton finds arresting themes in unusual places. . . . The writing is masterful and wonderfully absorbing.”