It was 80 degrees in the homeland when I arrived here yesterday afternoon, and by dinnertime it was still warm enough to eat dinner on the screened porch. But despite the heat, spring is later here than in Portland--trees still mostly bare, daffodils at full blow but no tulips yet.

The mysterious spring still lay under a spell,

the transparent wind stalked over the mountains,

                            --Anna Akhmatova

And so all night I woke and slept beneath an open window, listening to raindrops and frog cries and now this sea-roar wind tearing through the forest.