So three days ago I posted all of those cozy photos of my garden, and now you get something completely different: the aftermath of yesterday's microburst: aka 30 seconds of backyard devastation. Two minutes before this happened I was sitting on the front stoop with the cat, quietly watching storm clouds move in.

By some miracle, nothing was damaged except those two lawn chairs. Branches brushed against the house and against my car, but didn't land directly on either. But what a mess! And thank goodness for Tom, who can do everything. He came home from work five minutes after the havoc, looked around in amazement, laughed and shrugged, then got out his chainsaw and went to work. Now our yard is littered with firewood and we have giant brush piles in the driveway, and it's like being back in Harmony again.

On the plus side: Tom and I have a certain comic camaraderie in such situations. Otherwise, how could we have survived Harmony for so long?

P.S. Here's a new poem, out in the currrent issue of Salamander. It's the title poem of my collection-in-embryo.