I woke up with a splitting headache, but it seems to be fading into the dim light of coffee and 5 a.m. Downstairs the washer is churning. In the kitchen Tom is making his lunch and heating up leftovers for breakfast. I am staring at a vase of pussy willows and negotiating my headache into submission.

I spent much of yesterday working on a poem draft, with bits of editing and class planning sprinkled between. I endured my exercise class and took a long walk in the wind. I made chicken and potatoes and asparagus for dinner. It was a good quiet day, and I'm hoping for another one like it, before I have to deal with the ominous travel weather on Thursday and Friday. I think there's a good chance the Monson workshop will be postponed, but I won't know that till midday tomorrow. I'm trying not to fret.

So, today: Mulling over my poem draft. Submitting some poems. Editing a poetry collection. Reading the Aeneid. [Call this Theme 1.] Washing sheets. Baking. Getting down on my knees and trimming the winterkill out of the thyme between the stones on the front walk. [Theme 2.] Communicating via phone/air/Zoom/ESP/oracular aid with various people, animals, ghosts, trees, etc. [Theme 3.]

I'm pleased with the poem draft. It's climbing from pure imagination onto a slight rise of history . . . a shift that's been very enjoyable. I didn't start with a plan to write about Big Event. Rather, I invented a scene that, during revision, began bumping up against Big Event. As a result, I now have a sonnet titled "Waterloo" that doesn't mention Wellington, Napoleon, battlefields, or the dead . . . and yet they mill in the silent spaces.