All night, a beautiful gale--wind whistling and moaning around corners, through cracks, down chimneys; rain whipping scraps of leaves, petals, catkins against the running windows; and on the bay, the seasick sailboats lurching and tugging at their anchors, the gulls flinging sideways into the gusts, the little gray waves spitting at the shore.

No baby strollers on the streets this morning, just a few doughty dogs-and-walkers, cars breasting storm-drain ponds, wet public-works guys rescuing blown-over "Construction Area" signs, a sodden but cheerful squirrel peacefully skippety-skipping across a lawn.

Today I hope to be finishing up my Frost Place reading intros, but I'll also be prepping for some other tasks. Oddly enough, I've received of rush of teaching offers over the past few days. I told you about the Kauffmann Summer Writing Seminar--that two-day high school environmental writing/sea kayaking/camping fest that I'll be co-leading in July. Now the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance has offered me two opportunities: first, to teach a half-day poetry workshop in Kittery in August; and then, starting in September, to lead a 10-week poetry seminar . . . a full-scale reading/conversation/writing/revision extravaganza. On top of that, I met yesterday with the Telling Room staff about next steps for working as a teaching artist in their public school programs, and it looks as if I will also probably begin that job in the fall.

So little by little, my cobble-together "career" is cobbling together. It will be difficult/fascinating to lead a college-level poetry seminar at the same time as a public school residency. I imagine I'll have plenty to tell you about the experience.