Yesterday evening, this was the sight on Concord Plain: cat best friends taking their ease in the grassy shade . . . though 30 seconds later they were pouncing on each other and chasing each other into the iris patch. This pair is the amusement of the neighborhood: Jack and Ruckus don't live together, but they spend much of their waking time hanging out, prowling, sneaking up on each other, and staring into each other's back doors--a cat version of the local kid-crowd activity that's often happening at the same time. They are a very funny pair: Jack is standoffish with humans, while Ruckus is extremely social with them. Jack picks fights with strange cats, but Ruckus prefers to stay out of the fray. Jack trots around the street in all weathers, like a mayor checking up on his town, but Ruckus hates to be cold and wet. Jack is strangely compelled by garden hoses, whereas Ruckus is offended by them. And yet, with so many differences, they enjoy each other's company, go looking for one another, drape themselves over car hoods together, visit with the groundhog together, investigate open garages together . . . Jack, who generally hates the wandering cats who occasionally appear, attached himself to Ruckus at first sight. And Ruckus, who likes to be the center of all attention, will happily follow Jack over a fence or under a rosebush.

Yesterday was a good day for me as well as the cats. I felt as if I'd finally gotten my groove back, at least as far as my poetry-brain went. Maybe my Thursday-night salon outing helped, because when I went back to my Frost Place prep on Friday morning, my mind starting sparking and jumping. There's a special fizz I feel when my teaching ideas are falling into place, and there was no fizz earlier in the week, when I was slogging my way into my syllabus. On Wednesday morning I was convinced that I'd made a giant mistake in thinking I could teach a Marvell session. On Friday morning my Marvell-poem plans were dancing around the room, my Frost-poem ideas were shimmying alongside them, I'd figured out patterns and goals that linked the pair of sessions, and I knew that these lessons would be intense and surprising.

So this morning I am feeling pretty relaxed: a bit of extra sleep, work stuff under control, sunshine after rain.