It's a touch cooler and less humid this morning than it has been. A breath of autumn sifts through the screens, and the wren's tea kettle tea kettle tea kettle is a little more subdued. One ripe walnut, then another, clonks down from the neighbors' tree, a sign that as soon as night lifts the local squirrels will hurl themselves back into harvest hysteria.

This morning I've got my big school event to get through, and afterward maybe I'll manage to finish the editing project--if not today, then certainly tomorrow. Given that it's a 500-pager, I'm relieved I've been able to plow through it so steadily. But it needs to be off my desk, and soon.

Suddenly the neighborhood falls silent, the only sound the bare murmur of the highway in the distance. Even the wren is mute, even the crickets. But now a cardinal speaks--cheer, cheer, chip chip chip--a cricket responds, in the half-dark a squirrel scuttles toward the walnut tree, and the day resumes.

I'm thinking about today's big event but I'm not feeling too nervous. Schools don't tend to make me anxious, though government events apparently do. I more or less know where I am with teachers, even when they're crabby. And surely a tale about a hapless middle school basketball team will lift a few spirits. That's my intent, anyway. To tell a good story. To help them forget to be scared by poems.