Everything's just as it was: fine hard snow

beats against the dining room windows,

and I myself have not changed:

even so, a man came to call.

[from Anna Akhmatova's "The Guest" (January 1, 1914), translated by Jane Kenyon]

* * *

Today, our whirlwind visit with our college boy ends, and I'll be lugging him back to school. It's been a good visit--one involving many windy seaside walks, innumerable serious and not-so-serious conversations, enthusiastic baseball listening, the gleaning of childhood detritus, and much eating of seafood. I'm sad to relinquish him but glad to listen to his excitement about what he's learning and experimenting with and figuring out in his composition and directing classes. In my life anyway, there is no joy like the joy of watching my sons become fascinating and complicated men.