It can be hard to predict what poem teenagers will fall in love with. So I've been very interested that my Monson kids, while liking most things I've brought in, have gotten most excited about the two oldest poets I've shared: Sappho and Cold Mountain (Hanshan).

I brought in Sappho early in the year, and I shared Cold Mountain with them yesterday. A ninth-century Buddhist monk, he traveled around China, begging, drinking, and carving his poems on trees and buildings. The kids were very moved by his work, and they loved imagining how Chinese characters would look in tree bark. We spent a long time talking about the beauty of alphabets. The poem I brought them (which I won't reprint here because the translation is under copyright) is a small song about busy people and a contented speaker . . . quite simple, clearly set long ago but also timeless, evoking the woods and a dusty road. I can't explain exactly why the students loved it so much, but they did.

I'm always very moved when a piece makes this mark on people. It seems to enter them like nourishment, like the food they've been waiting for all their lives.

* * *

I got home in the late afternoon, lit a fire in the stove, dealt with the offended cat. Eventually I made cream of tomato soup, with homemade chicken broth and the last of my frozen garden tomatoes. Tomato soup sounds like such a plain meal, but the real materials make it something grand yet very simple. It was a sweet and comforting dinner.

Today I'll be wading through piles of chores: laundry, grocery shopping, housework, editing, class prep for the weekend. But I think I'll go out to write tonight anyway. These Thursday-night salons have become so precious to me. Even when I'm overworked, they seem like the right thing to do.