Yesterday I forked myself back into my exercise routine, designed a class, edited a memoir, cleaned bathrooms, hung laundry, and then in the afternoon gave myself the treat of working in the flowerbeds as the cat lounged in the sun and the Red Sox whooped the Minnesota Twins on the radio. Nothing is more springlike than day-game baseball, sheets on the line, and me on my knees hacking out maple seedlings.

Later I made chocolate-chip scones and trundled out to my writing salon, and now here I am, on the morning after, pondering a brand-new day of more of some of the same . . . classwork, housework, yardwork. Next week will be insanely busy: driving north on Monday, teaching on Tuesday, teaching on Wednesday, running a panel session on Thursday, teaching on Saturday . . . I hope I will survive in one piece.

And so I am trying to rest in these little moments, moments like now, when I'm sitting alone and asking words to slide from my fingers, though I have nothing thrilling to say, just a litany of duties, just anecdotes of cardinals in the dogwood tree and crows on the roof, the dull little round of a poet-housewife, and yet they are, they exist, they flicker through my eyes into my thoughts and, in turn, my thoughts flicker back into sunlight and air . . . microbes of mind and feeling, like dust motes; I think of my children, gone back into their worlds, I think of my beloved, sorting through photographs of our youth. We were beautiful, he says sadly, and I put my arms around him, and I lean my cheek against his shoulder, and outside a mourning dove coos, outside a UPS truck clanks past, O time and sorrow, O sweetness, here I am, at your mercy.