Back to the grind: exercise class, work call, editing, plus grocery shopping and whatever housework energy I can muster. Tomorrow I head north, for teaching on Wednesday, and then the rest of the week will also be work work work.

In the midst of this, we are losing one of our enormous maples. On Wednesday, the dying giant that graces the narrow split between our driveway and the neighbor's will be euthanized. There will be chainsaws, a chipper, a crane: the noise will be terrible, and I'm not sorry I'll be out of town for it. I am sad about the necessity, of course. It's been a friendly tree, though scary during storms, and I wish there was some way to rejuvenate it. But it's poised to split onto both of our houses, it constantly drops limbs, and there seems to be no alternative.

Here's that At Length poem link I was telling you about yesterday. The excerpt, "Three Weeks," encompasses the final three sections of A Month in Summer, my book-length diary narrative, which is still floating around looking for a publisher. It was a finalist for the National Poetry Series, and I think it's possible someone might take it eventually; actually, one publisher has held it for most of year and assures me they're considering it seriously, so maybe maybe. (The first section previously appeared in the Beloit Poetry Journal, if you want to read them in order.)