4pQonT

XII
FOR SOME forty years, Ezra Pound had been regarding the
antics of his critics with mild amusement. The furor over the
Bollingen award, which took his native land by surprise, was
nothing new to him. He continued to work in his dreary cell, his
only recreation the daily visits of his wife and his friends.
On summer afternoons, the Pounds created a little world of their
own as they looked down from their height upon the wedding cake
dome of the United States Capitol. Usually they sat near a giant
Japanese pine, but because of the ban on taking photographs, I
was never allowed to take a picture of Ezra standing beneath this
rugged tree, which was so much like him.
Whenever they emerged from the ward, carrying their chairs,
their string bags bulging with odd lots of food, books and letters
for the visitors, their pet blue jays always set up a great screeching,
wheeling above them as the chairs were arranged. Then the
squirrels would come skipping down from nearby trees for their
daily treat. Ezra would lure them up onto a bench with a peanut
tied to a string. He taught them to take the nut from between his
fingers, a practice that I considered reckless.
During these afternoons, Ezra's manner was that of a deservedly
popular professor at a small but highly-regarded school, who was
having some of his star students in for tea. His bonhomie was always
perfect for the occasion; he was a benevolent Socrates who as
285