Spent time yesterday with Frost, Akhmatova, Rilke. It felt good to read poems, after all my immersion in history. The Frost poem that Baron has chosen for the opening day of the teaching conference is wonderful/appalling, but I won't wreck the surprise by telling you what it is.

So, happy first day of June to you. To celebrate the season, Tom and I are discussing house painting. Since we both dislike house painting, this is not much of a celebration. Still, it does presume that the temperature is now likely to stay above the frost line, which is a gala of sorts.

What would Milton say? Apparently, he would say, "He from Heav'n's highth / All these motions vain, sees and derides." Sometimes that man really pisses me off.