Monday morning, and I feel like it should be Saturday morning. I need a day off, but I'm not getting one, for the tight schedule of a giant editing project waits for no one. So I will drink my small cup of coffee, and get the laundry underway, and trudge through my exercise class, and prop myself up at my desk, and undertake this day.

The weekend workshop was intense, as they always are. I love teaching and am exhausted by teaching. So much concentration: I'm sure the participants were equally tired. But after our afternoon session ended, I immediately went for a two-mile walk, and that helped me rest my eyes and my mind.

I am still amazed by the rigors of this art. Poetry is so demanding. As soon as I've climbed one hill, I discover an impassible swamp on the other side. I never find the answers, only one question after another. I love this about my vocation, but that doesn't make it easier.

Outside the window, a round moon is tangled in a silhouette of branches. The furnace mutters, the clock ticks, time slips by, slips by, slips by. Long ago, in 1948, Alcott House was a raw new cottage; long ago, in 2017, I wandered these rooms, at home and homeless; long ago, yesterday, I was a poet but, today, anything could happen. Anything.

It is February, and the days are lengthening, and my seed orders are arriving in the mail. In a month I will be outside in my chore coat, prodding the beds, opening the cold frame, hunting for snowdrops.