After 36 hours in transit, Paul finally managed to get home, where we fed him lovingly on oysters, scallops, tuna, and peach pie. He has become an expert on upstate NY bus stations, should you have any curiosity about them.

So this morning my house is once again full of sleeping males, and the rain is coming down slowly and sweetly, and the cat is furious about the wet, and I am contentedly sitting on the couch and drinking black coffee in the dim living room. Later this morning I will head north for a gig, and everything will become hurried and hectic, but, for now, peace reigns (except for the cat, who is fretful).

I did nothing with poems yesterday because I was seized with harvest fever. I canned a jar of tomatoes--just one, but I have a small freezer and had to do something with them. I made a peach pie; I ground and froze two dishpans full of basil. I stacked some firewood and bagged up some brush and mowed some grass. I washed sheets and made beds.

Thankfully, the heat has finally let up. I slept all last night without a fan running, and with a comforter tugged up to my chin. And this morning the windows of Alcott House are closed and I am wearing a sweatshirt. Unfortunately I am also recovering from dreams involving Donald Trump and a community college classroom, which I cannot possibly explicate to you. But I do know that I outwitted him. Let us all be glad for that mercy.

The little street outside my front windows is glossy with wet, and the garden is heavy with rain and fruit. No cars are passing. The neighborhood is asleep. I am sitting inside in my dim living room, admiring my white cup and saucer, and my elderly paperback, and a fat stone from a Maine beach, and a burgeoning African violet. Simple items, without value. If I were to die, no one would treasure any of them. But what does that matter? The present tense has its jewels.