I worked at my desk yesterday morning, and then Paul drove us to Gorham to O'Donals Nursery, which was barely open for the season and thus gave us a delightful, unimpeded stroll among the shrubs. After much cogitation, we bought a yellow rose for the reclaimed Hill Country, and a small white viburnum for the new Shed Trail bed, and seven ferns and a white hellebore for the new Shed Patch bed. Now they are all safely planted and watered, and I'm feeling confident about their future.

Today will be much the same, except instead of plant shopping I'll be teaching my last high school class. We're going to talk about poetry as power: a way to make a voice heard, to frame injustice; an art that presses us to be Shelley's "unacknowledged legislators to the world."

After that: back into the garden, or possibly onto my bike. I have to figure out what to make for dinner: maybe broccoli and polenta, maybe a spinach quiche, maybe something else entirely.

I'm currently reading Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey and John Updike's Memories of the Ford Administration. 

And, oh yes, I almost forgot: maybe you'd like to see "Pandemic Field Notes," the poem I wrote for the Writing the Land Project--a collaboration between poets and land trusts.