This is the view from the bedroom window of the cottage: 6 a.m., low tide, clouds rolling out from Goose Cove into Frenchman's Bay. The temperature is 38 degrees, no wind that I can see. Spring is arriving slowly. My friend has filled the cottage with daffodils and forsythia, but the weather is not soft, though tomorrow is May.

In an hour I will walk up to the house and drink coffee and visit. For now Tom and I are lolling. We have no hard plans for the day. A hike somewhere. A nap eventually. And then I'll make mushroom soup for our friends and us. It is lovely to be so peaceable and unfocused.

In fact, I feel almost wordless . . . a sort of sleepy inarticulate pleasure that doesn't require framing, even rejects it . . . as if Why does describing matter? as if Just hush up and be. These are funny instructions for a poet, but then again: if my work life is shaping language, maybe my vacation life shouldn't be.

Or maybe I'll suddenly write a giant poem.