This is the marquee of the Center Theater in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine. My younger son performed at this theater often, in high school plays and music events. I've performed here, when I was playing in my band. The marquee is a big sign in Piscataquis County, the least populated county in the state. Everyone keeps an eye on it.

So the director at Monson Arts had the pretty wonderful idea of  buying space on the marquee to feature some of my students' work. Here is a line composed by Eric Jacobs of Piscataquis Community High School, used as a refrain in a group poem we created. I hope he is thrilled. I know I am.

Poetry on Main Street, in central Maine. The times they are a-changin.

* * *

Yesterday was a stressful, pulled-in-all directions day. Lots of editing pressure; Frost Place planning deadlines; a very sick friend. Now, this morning, I need to apply for unemployment, as Maine has finally opened applications to the self-employed. The site opens at 8 a.m. Any guesses on how soon it will crash? Or how much time it will suck out of my day?

Anyway, I had a good night's sleep, and Eric's line on the marquee cheered me immensely. It's hard to explain how cathartic it's been, this opportunity to teach in my homeland . . . and to have the work treated as important, as vital, as worth public celebration. I spent so many years up there being scoffed at--not by students but by administrators, department heads, parents. So to see a student poet's words on the biggest sign in the county! That is a wonder and a joy.

Today, we'll have rain and wind and rain and wind. But something has turned in the weather. When I stepped outside this morning, I felt a new sort of breeze, softened air, denser humidity, though the temperature's not much warmer than it has been. Do you remember those moments in the Mary Poppins books when the world suddenly becomes odd, and everyone walking around in the park senses that a change is coming, and then suddenly Mary shows up on the end of a balloon string? That's the kind of morning this is.