I am sitting in the reading room of the Abbie Greenleaf Library in Franconia, New Hampshire, feeling totally exhausted. Nonetheless, the teaching conference maintains its accustomed standards. Every year the participants are marvelous, the visiting poets are exciting, the food is delicious, the coffee pot is broken, and the weather is lousy. Baron and I were on stage all day long yesterday, so today seems rather calm in comparison, except for the tension of being time keeper during the teachers' presentations. I vacillate between checking the time every three seconds and forgetting to check it at all. Neither behavior is ideal.