Yesterday was a surprisingly warm day, and this morning the mildness lingers, though today's temperatures aren't supposed to rise out of the mid-sixties. Little Chuck sits next to me beside the open window, washing his face. Last night he and Tom enjoyed boy time together, while I was out writing, and then both beamed at me when I walked through the door. How he worms his way into our affections, despite our broken Ruckus hearts. Oh, these little souls.

I wrote two poem-blurts last night: one a hideous mess that I won't revisit, but the other might be real. This morning, after I deal with recycling and dishes and laundry and my mat exercises, I'll see what daylight says about it. I do hope it's a poem. Writing has been so hard for me lately.

This afternoon Teresa and Jeannie and I will meet to talk about To the Lighthouse and Nevermore and Ruden's I Am the Arrow. We always share a recent draft or two, and I think maybe one of the ones I'll be sharing is all right. But writing has been so difficult for me that I barely trust myself.

I know this will pass; it always does. And I am dogged. I always plow straight through my dry fields, kicking up dust. 

In the cemetery, one of my favorite gravestones reads Homemaker. Drummer. Maybe on mine someone will etch Mule. Poet.