Tomorrow morning P sets out on his Canadian canoe idyll; on Friday I leave for the Frost Place. I think we're both mostly ready for our adventures . . . though I'm never quite sure.

Today will be hot and humid, and I have to mow grass and wash sheets and read some Dante, and hang out with my son, and then go to a school event in the evening for the kids I taught this winter. The garden is swelling: peas in flower, beans in flower; second crops of greens burgeoning; strawberries setting fruit. I am awash in duty.