5 a.m. A few raindrops spatter. Under the street lamps, black coins of wet dot paving stones, and a mineral scent wafts up from the shadows. [It has taken me ten minutes to carve out that sentence. By now, no doubt, the living scene is entirely different. That's the problem with words. They're always behind the times.]

This early morning is my small hiatus before the storm. Rain will settle in, I will get behind the wheel, the day will fill with talking and listening and talking and listening, and rain and driving, and talking and listening, and driving and rain, and by 9 p.m. or so I might be back home again, or I might still be talking and listening and driving in the rain. [I required much less time to make that sentence. Maybe it's easier to write about things that haven't happened yet.]

Betsy and I have spent many hours fidgeting over a talk that will be considerably shorter than our fidgets, but isn't that always the way? I foresee the need for a midafternoon cup of coffee. I foresee the need for a private corner, fortified by empty chairs and a paperback. Festivals, at least in foresight, elicit the anxious introvert within. I will pack Henry James for protection. [This paragraph is full of pompous language but so be it. I've reached the point of whatever-comes-out-is-whatever-comes-out. Resignation to fate is a typical stage in the writing process.]

A question: what does one wear for a day in the classroom, on stage, out for dinner, in the car, and slogging through rain? Another question: how do trees blossom so suddenly? As daylight creeps in, I see that the maples have been transformed. They are nothing like the bare silhouettes of nightfall. Something happened overnight--a switch thrown, a spell cast--and now each twig is fluffed in pale green or dark red. [I threw down two unrelated questions, and before I knew it they had somehow become linked. Is this my particular brain at work or just a really obvious dust cloud that everybody has seen coming from miles away? Who knows. (Note that my last question doesn't have a question mark. I put it in and took it out and put it in and took it out. That is how poets waste the guttering flame of their hours.)]

Now the cat is whapping down the stairs--bam, bam, bam . . . that Sandburgian "fog comes in on little cat feet" stuff is a joke in this household: yeah, sure, if fog were like heaving sandbags; and now I have finished my second little cup of coffee and that means I need to make the bed and gather the laundry and act like a person who's got chores and responsibilities and a schedule and stuff; and also now the cat is clawing at the couch to get my attention and climbing onto the coffee table to get my attention and loudly washing his feet to get my attention, so even though I have no idea how to gracefully finish this letter to you, I am going to finish it anyway . . . May the rain and the headlights be tender to my tired eyes. [Sorry. Clearly the punctuation situation is out of hand. Oh well. Too late now.]