Three groups of trick-or-treaters knocked at our door last night, and Chuck was overcome with the excitement. At the end of the evening he flopped on the couch like he'd been chasing rabbits. Halloween! What a holiday!

This morning he seems to have recovered his equanimity and has resumed his usual purring spot against my left shoulder. The wind, which was whistling all day and all night, has died down to a steady breeze, and a coral sunrise is romantically staining my neighbors' white vinyl siding. It looks like the perfect day to talk about Whitman.

This morning before class I'll get out for a walk or a bike ride. I'll marinate chicken for dinner and deal with laundry and dishes. And then we'll begin the big Walt experiment. Can spending two weeks with "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" really help us carve out a messy, surprising long poem draft? I guess we'll find out.

This class is among the most complex I've ever designed: lots of talk, lots of writing, plus lots of participant interaction, which can be tricky in a virtual setting. And it's long: two weekends on zoom, with a gap week between, when the poets will be working together without my interference. I'm excited. Rereading "Brooklyn Ferry" this summer blew a hole between my ears, and I can't wait to find out how I'm going to respond to our conversation about it as well as to my own prompts. With luck I'll dig a real draft out of this experience. With luck other people will too.

Nonetheless, the class will be a marathon. That's the long poem way, always chasing us up Heartbreak Hill.

It poured rain all night and is still drizzling now. The garden is beautifully sopped, and I'm so glad I did manage to get those hostas transplanted, and even a few leaves raked, before the storm.

Because I'll be teaching all weekend, today is my holiday. Other than answering a few emails and prepping for tomorrow's class, I am not planning to accomplish anything that isn't my own stuff. I finished both editing jobs this week, my high school plans are done, the Baron essay is done, the vacuuming and bathrooms are done. So I'll go for a walk in the dripping woods, I'll throw a load of sheets into the washing machine, and then I'll settle into whatever I feel like messing around with . . . poems, garden, reading, cooking. I do have a haircut appointment this afternoon, and afterward I'll step over to my neighbor's house to watch the baking show with her, but nobody could label either of those activities work. I am very much looking forward to my day.

I'd like to finish The Waves and "Song of Myself." I'd like to make my way through another chunk of Little Dorrit. I'd like to work on poem drafts and maybe start printing out pieces so that I can begin to imagine a collection. I'd like to pick up Alice Notley's "The Descent of Alette" at the library. I'd like to sit by the fire and do a crossword puzzle. I'd like to rake a few leaves and harvest some kale. I'd like to play mousie with Chuck. I'd like to slowly dice up vegetables for minestrone. I won't do nearly all of this, but any of it would satisfy me.

We'll probably get a few tricker-or-treaters tonight, but we rarely see many. For some reason our little street doesn't draw them. But no matter the number, Chuck will be amazed and excited. Everything thrills that guy. Dry leaves! Dixon Ticonderoga pencils! A bread tie! Dawn's nose! 

I woke to a cool and cloudy morning, with rain in the forecast for tonight, I'm pleased to report. 

Yesterday afternoon I snagged half an hour to cut back the rest of my lily and iris stalks. This afternoon maybe I'll get a chance to split and transplant a few hostas before the storm arrives. That depends on how swiftly I can plow through my house and desk chores. I did get next week's high school plans sussed out, and I'm making quick progress on the copyediting, so I'm hopeful.

My brain is slowly beginning to unclot itself. I am feeling lighter, less tangled, which is a surprise to me as tomorrow is the first anniversary of Ray's death, which I have been dreading. Last night we went out to listen to Jonathan Richman, who of course I first heard with Ray . . . those Modern Lovers songs, so plain, so naked with longing, unwinding themselves at midnight in the concrete cocoon of a dorm room.

But somehow, last night, I wasn't freighted with loss. I was just listening to a man in his seventies sing and play guitar, and I was happy to be witnessing how lively and full of curiosity such a man can be. I was happy to be reminded that life is for being alive. Here we are. So let's be here.

I woke up this morning to the excellent news that the Blue Jays knocked superhuman pitcher Shohei Ohtani out of the game in the sixth inning, winning the contest despite an injury to one of their best hitters in the previous day's eighteen-inning grind. Ah, baseball. You are such a romance.

Now Little Chuck has had his breakfast, Tom and I have had our coffee, and I am sitting here in my couch corner contemplating the day ahead. I had a good night's sleep, and I'm feel vastly lightened, now that I've finished that essay. I turned in my first CavanKerry assignment as well, so I'm altogether less overwhelmed than I was. Today I've got to work on high school plans and return to my academic copyediting project, but later I might actually have a chance to work in the garden, or even look at my own poems. And tonight T and I are going out to a Jonathan Richman show, so altogether the day will have a novel flavor.

Yesterday Teresa and Jeannie and I talked about moving forward with the Substack journal we've been planning but have thus far not executed. For all three of us Baron's death has been a blow, not least because he was the person who brought us together in the first place. We've been churning in a sort of group maelstrom over it, none of us able to make much progress with other work. So it was a relief to discover we were able to compile a few sensible plans about moving forward with the journal.

Sunshine today. 

Today is my younger son's 28th birthday, and I wish him the sweetest of days in far-off Brooklyn. He is one of the great joys of my life, so full of feeling and thought, so wholehearted about what matters. He remains my most persistent phone caller, the family member most likely to get a poem read to him, a sports romantic, lover of rivers, whisperer of cats. How I adore him.

Yesterday I got a solid start on my two editing projects and, thank goodness, I finally finished the Baron essay and was able to send it to his wife for her okay. Today I'll run it past the rest of the contributors, and then I'll submit it to the journal editor, and then, I hope, I can take a deep breath and let myself off the hook. Writing that piece has been a massive undertaking. From the start I have felt unqualified, unready, unhappy, and also unable to say no. So I did it, and now there are twelve manuscript pages of shadow.

This morning I'll get onto my mat and return to my editing jobs, and in the afternoon I'll zoom with Jeannie and Teresa. I'd like to think I'll finish the manuscript commentary today, but we'll see. That kind of focus can be slow work. The press sent me one of Baron's author letters to show me how he was thinking and talking about the collections he edited, so in that regard I am still carrying his weight, even without the essay around my neck. But I guess that is my job right now.

Anyway, the sun will shine. Little Chuck will sit at the open front door watching the leaves blow. I'll pour tea and read Virginia Woolf over lunch. The Carolina wren will sing in the bare lilacs. Far to my south a hurricane will shred lives. The abyss is difficult to fathom.

It's 34 degrees this morning, just shy of a frost. I got a lot done in the garden yesterday, though not everything I'd hoped to accomplish. But the furniture is stowed, I cut up sticks and bagged them, and  I pruned the massive elderberry and bagged the trimmings. I also made good progress on cutting back perennials. I hope I can get more of that finished this week, as well as do some transplanting, but these jobs always take longer than I think they will.

The next few weeks are going to be hectic. I'll be teaching or traveling for three weekends in a row, plus embarking on my usual Monson jaunts. But at least I'll be sleeping in my own bed for the next seven days. This morning I'll go for my walk, and then I'll turn my thoughts to finishing the Baron essay. This week I've got a poetry manuscript to comment on and a small academic project to copyedit. I need to prep for my high schoolers and go over my long-poem syllabus and show up for some meetings. I've got to keep up with house chores and cook meals and, with luck, get back into the garden. Life feels kind of dizzying, but the great news is that I am not sick and my car isn't terrifying and my cupboards are full of ingredients.  Also, my kitten is no longer sad.

I still don't know when I'll be able to think seriously about my own poems. I keep writing them, tucking my drafts around the edges of obligation. I keep reading and reading. But there has been no space to plan a collection. Maybe once I finish the essay, I can hoard that space for myself. Life seems so eager to crowd me out.

I spent yesterday morning in the garden: cleaning out the last of the delicate crops--peppers, eggplant, okra. We haven't had a frost yet, but they'd clearly stopped growing, so goodbye. I pulled carrots and dismantled the insect nets, and did a thorough weeding of the vegetable beds. I planted, then mulched the garlic. I collected the outside chairs, drained the hoses, stowed the table, the fire grate, and the cold frame. Today T and I will finagle the chairs and hoses through the cellar hatch for storage, carry the snow shovels out to the shed, and then that stage of fall cleanup will be done.

Today I'll work on pruning perennials, bagging sticks, and, I hope, splitting my hostas so I can fill some blank spaces in the backyard beds. I might start raking leaves into the gardens, though there are many more leaves to fall.

Baron's pink dahlias still bloom bravely. The orange nasturtiums and white zinnias are hanging on. The blueberry bushes and the Japanese maple are brilliant crimson. Despite the drought the yard glows red and gold and green. Kale, chard, and lettuce flutter in the vegetable garden. The sturdy herbs are thriving; even the basil, though wan, is hanging onto life.

In the cellar, the firewood is stacked. Boxes and buckets are filled with kindling. The furnace is clean. The tank is full. There is a basket of potatoes and onions. Drying shirts and pants tremble on the clotheslines. Upstairs in the freezer are bags of wild mushrooms, green beans, kale, corn, peppers; boxes of tomato sauce, peaches, chicken stock. In the refrigerator: peppers, carrots, cabbage, celery, beets--some of it mine, all of it local.

I feel rich. It's not like I've forgotten that obscene car-repair bill and the rest of our endless suck of expenses. But the homestead snugness of late autumn is so reassuring. We have food. We have heat. Let the storms arise.