And the sun goes down in waves of ether
in such a way that I can't tell
if the day is ending, or the world,
or if the secret of secrets is within me again.

[from Anna Akhmatova's "On the Road," translated by Jane Kenyon]

* * *

Yesterday, in the midst of school, a poem draft began unrolling itself in my notebook. I am almost afraid to hope that the long embargo might be lifting.

This morning has dawned bright and cold and windy. This evening will be the last night that my essay class meets, and we will have a small reading celebration. In the interstices, the quotidian world.

But perhaps words are rising; perhaps silence is turning toward something, toward somewhere.

I am trying to keep the door open.