Things were quiet in the garden yesterday: no visitors, other than the usual cats and insects. Tomatoes are reddening fast, and I expect I'll be simmering a few giant pots of sauce later this week. But the green beans are wearing out and the cucumbers are slowing down. Clearly, vegetable life is making its shift toward autumn.

I yanked something or other in my left hip--a ligament or whatever--which stiffens up at night and whenever I sit. So I've been trying to tend it: going for long walks with my neighbor, doing yoga, standing to write and edit. They're an aggravation, these minor injuries that take so long to mend . . . or instead of mending just turn into weak spots that never quite disappear. No matter what we do, our bodies insist on aging.

Tonight I'll be reading with Linda Aldrich, at 7 p.m. via Zoom (details below, in an earlier blog post). So I'll spend some time today sorting through poems, mulling over what to share. This will be my first reading since the Frost Place conference, and a much more public one. Suddenly I'm feeling shy.