After nearly 24 hours spent in travel and delays--including howling winds and the worst airplane landing I have ever experienced--I managed to find my way back to Harmony, Maine. Promptly, the power went out, so we spent the evening playing Yahtzee and eating homemade pizza by candlelight as the winds continued to howl and the fact of Los Angeles became evermore implausible.

I'm standing at my desk now, at the other end of the continent, with a cat on a chair and a dog on a rug, with a clicking woodstove and a view of naked branches and bare cold grass. Outside are the cries of woodpeckers and doves and distant logging machines. It's like I have never been anywhere at all.

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Tu Fu readers: Peg has offered some compelling thoughts on, among other things, what does or does not constitute a successful poem. What is your response?