Last night's dinner was casserole-roasted chicken with sage, mushroom gravy, farro, roasted brussels sprouts, and sliced tomatoes with dill and olive oil, followed by cribbage and a Cubs game. Meanwhile, the rain poured, the cat purred, the wood fire snapped. We were like a cognac advertisement without the cognac.

Today, more rain. I have finished the mediocre David Lodge novel I was reading, so here I am, on an aimless wet Sunday, with all of my books packed into boxes. I shall be driven to reading magazine articles and the telephone directory.

Or I could copy out more Rilke and try to find the missing word in my poem draft. That would be more sensible.

Don't you think using the word sensible in this context is a little bit funny?

By the way, I heard the worst--the worst-- interview question on NPR yesterday. As Tom and I were driving to the apple orchard, he turned on the radio, and one of those guys whose voice sounds like all the other guys' voices was asking the poet Anne Carson, "Do poets really find hope in hopelessness?" I immediately started making choking noises, and Tom immediately started laughing but also, thank God, turned off the radio so I didn't have to listen to poor Anne hang on to her good manners. Argh. That's the sort of question that drives a poet to laudanum.

Geoffrey Hill readers: Comments are coming in on the "Merlin" post, so join the conversation. I'll be adding my thoughts later today.