I went out last night to the salon and did not write well there, which was interesting, considering how intensely I've been writing at home. Still, it was good to get out and see people, and to listen to other poets who were writing better drafts than I was. I even enjoyed the small drive across town, from my own leafy neighborhood, through downtown crowds, into the narrow streets of the West End. I realized that I've hardly driven anywhere for weeks, just one boring trip to Target and some grocery shopping. I've been a Zoom hermit, also a regular hermit, emerging only to hang laundry and pull weeds and bike crazily around the cemetery in search of mushrooms.

In the meantime the big poem has found a publisher, so I need to step aside from it for a while, let it stretch its legs away from me. I wonder what I might work on next. I feel a little lonely without it.