I spent some time yesterday afternoon (after mopping many, many floors) listening to Rachmaninoff piano concertos, eating bananas, and looking through Uncommon Places, a collection of Stephen Shore's photographs from the 1970s. Today I plan to listen to Parliament, eat Cara Cara oranges, and look through a collection of John Singer Sargent's paintings. In a house with so many art books and LPs lying around shelfless and un-alphabetized, the opportunities are rife for peculiar pairings. Just add fruit, and you've got an event.

This will be a busy week: a teacher meeting tomorrow, and then on Wednesday I leave for a teaching gig in Massachusetts. In between: editing and classroom prep and editing and editing and editing and dealing with whatever house eventuality arises. But I've written two new poems since Christmas--two new poems I like--and I am reading steadily. Creatively I'm feeling a bit like a middle-of-the-road phoenix, somewhat dishevelled and ratty around the tailfeathers, bleary and sneezing among the ashes, and dealing with an awkward stiffness in my wings--but rising, rising nonetheless, in my own awkward way.