The rain has ended, mostly, but it's still 39 degrees out there, a miserable temperature for late April. Supposedly the air will start warming this week, but at the moment I have my doubts. Still, the flowers are managing to enjoy themselves. Redbud trees have begun to bloom along the sidewalks, and the tulips are sharp and bright. Probably I'll have to mow grass soon . . . in a winter coat.

I picked up our warehouse order yesterday, which included a five-pound bag of Belgian chocolate chips. Foraging at the wholesaler amuses me. I would never have bought such a thing before, but now I'm taking what I can get--trays of anchovies, ten-pound sacks of macaroni. I haven't set foot inside a building (other than my own house) for more than a month. Still, tonight we're having marinated pork chops, roasted cauliflower, asparagus with ginger, and fresh pineapple for dessert. Clearly, I'm managing.

Yesterday I spent an hour on the phone with my friend Teresa, continuing our slow, intense conversation about Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus. We've just finished the first series and are getting ready to dive into the second. We have entirely different ways of undertaking these poems, but our conversations mesh and enrich, which is very exciting. Teresa is a wonderful partner in this endeavor because she is extremely focused and serious but also indifferent to what other people suggest she should think, unless those people are the likes of Ovid or Homer. I feel so fortunate to have her voice in my head.

This morning: yoga, phone patter with my older son, laundry, editing, cups of tea . . . in the afternoon: gardening, walking, Blake, Rilke, Munro . . . in the evening: dinner prep, a wood fire, music, card games . . . It all sounds very calm and civilized. And so it is, I suppose: a dear little desert island, that also happens to be overrun with thorns and quicksand and poisonous snakes. Not either/or but both/and.

Here's a small poem from my manuscript Blood. It feels relevant to what I was just trying to say.

Ashes are a way to die in action

Dawn Potter

1

A woman shovels ashes

into a coal scuttle.

2

Shrieking, the wind

blows ashes into her tangled hair.

3

Future ashes sigh

and twitch their boughs.

4

Beneath a bed of ashes

the live coals wink.