We got a skim of snow last night, just enough to coat stairs and roofs and intensify the moonlight. This morning, as I swept the back stoop in the dark, I got the sudden sense of lurking spring--behind the snow, behind the cold, a change is readying. I've already been feeling this during the day. Bird song has shifted from its sharp winter notes to a sweeter, liquid questioning; daylight is softer, more expansive. Yesterday I spied the first points of snowdrops breaking through a neighbor's frozen garden soil. It's February in Maine: winter is by no means gone. But the transformation is beginning.

I've been working hard this week, keeping my head down, my nose to the whetstone. Still, I've managed to save a little time for other things . . . my useful exercise class, walks to the library, poem revision, reading.  I've got too much stuff in my reading stack right now. I can't seem to tear myself away from War and Peace, but I've still got to finish Watchmen and buckle down to those Alabaster poems, plus I just picked up Edward Said's Culture and Imperialism at the library, as well as a collection of Dashiell Hammett stories.

Sometimes this ridiculous reading obsession really gets out of hand. Currently, I am working on a comic poem about struggling with Joyce's Ulysses, in which the speaker mournfully describes herself as "the champion reader of her generation." I know how she feels.

Anyway, today. More editing. More laundry. Lemon-marinated pork chops and roasted cauliflower for dinner. And a pile of books begging to be opened.