Following is the sort of information that makes me feel that writing a poem cycle about the history of western Pennsylvania might just be possible.

"An elephant was exhibited in . . . Greensburg in 1808."

This small fact appears in Scott C. Martin's Killing Time: Leisure and Culture in Southwestern Pennsylvania, 1800-1850, a cultural study that I would like to enjoy reading more than I really am. So far, the book has too much Martin and not enough elephant anecdotes. I'm still hoping, but already my brain has started inventing its own 1808 elephant pictorial, so perhaps the author is actually doing me a service.

Miraculously, I managed to whip up a fine Easter dinner, even though I hadn't been to the grocery store for a week: sirloin soaked in lime marinade and then grilled over wood; mashed potatoes, spring onions, and asiago; a pan of fresh dandelion greens, first of the season, with balsamic vinegar and lots of fried garlic; and a fudge pie. Plus, Tom is going to build me a new chicken yard. I'm so happy. There is practically nothing more infuriating than watching a flock of chickens scratch up a bed of newly planted peas.

Ambiguous hints of chickens in literature, contorted to suit the critic's preconceived notions: Wordsworth writes, "Behold her, single in the field, / Yon solitary Highland Lass! / Reaping and singing by herself; / Stop here, or gently pass!" If one assumes (as one must) that the aforementioned "Highland Lass!" is a hen, one must also admit that the narrator rather enjoys watching her "Reaping" "in the field." Yet the reader should note that even he, this non-farming passerby, limits his enjoyment to a single "Lass!"