Yesterday the temperature in Portland reached 55 degrees. Today we'll have cold rain and snow. Such is February in the little northern city by the sea. But I've got daffodils spiking out of the ground. Last fall's spinach wintered over. I've moved the cold frame to warm up a patch of soil for an early March sowing. Spring is trembling in the wings, and I am excited.

I went out to write last night . . . I didn't feel on top of my game, but maybe I can glean something from the notebook blurts. No matter what, it's good to watch the words pour out, even if the poem possibilities are dim. And earlier in the day I did get stuff done--editing, errands, bathrooms. Maybe today I'll be able to slip my own reading and writing into the olio of duty. Or maybe not. I can't quite predict what this day will hold, but I will undergo the exercise class; I will undertake the editing project; I will untangle the vacuum cleaner; I will understand that some days march obediently down the road and other days fall into the ditch and still others go AWOL and are discovered days later holed up with a stray dog and a six-pack in a shack by the river.