Driving home from the Frost Place yesterday, I worked hard to stay awake and finally had to pull over in Dixfield and buy a paper cup of horrendous day-old coffee. The teaching conference is exhausting, for reasons that have nothing to do with sleeping, drinking, or anxiety. It's the intensity of listening and thinking and feeling . . . all of which make the experience sound like a New Age self-help manual but which in truth tell the old, old story of poetry.

Anyway, I was tired. So when I was driving through Athens and a wild turkey ambled across the road in front of me, it was mere good fortune that I automatically slowed down to scan the hedgerows for other signs of life. Many things are hard to see. Including poems. Including the ten tiny, grey-brown turkey poults scuttling after their mother like a flock of ellipses. I didn't crush them under my tires. As you can see, there's a lot to be said for patience and bad coffee.