Yesterday was yet another day of pouring rain, fire in the woodstove, endless hot tea, and two sweaters, along with fist-shaking at whatever insect keeps beheading my okra seedlings. On my desk: a dense historical novel in need of copyediting. In the kitchen: Venetian meat-and-potato balls and a bowl of fresh greens. In my lap: Richard Ford's The Lay of the Land.

Tomorrow I'll be leading a poetry revision workshop in Portsmouth for much of the day. A week from now I'll head west to the Frost Place. I'm in a bit of a fluster . . . not a big one, just the usual Oh, golly, I need to pull myself together, don't I?

For the moment I'm staring out into the cool dense foggy green of a Casco Bay June. The sea is invisible but feels very close. The sky is a wet afghan hung over two chairs, the houses prim little islands on asphalt shoals. Peonies loll against drainpipes. Peavines gobble the trellis; tomato plants lurch up their stakes, hungry as teenage boys. Summer is a greedy season.