The occasional poem I mentioned yesterday, "Maine: July 2026," appears in today's Vox Populi. This may be the fastest creation-to-publication stream I've ever experienced. My friend Weslea Sidon and I also plan to perform it chorally next Tuesday evening at our reading at the Bass Harbor Library. It seems important to harp on the matter before people are distracted away from remembering.

***

My dry neighborhood finally received a couple of downpours yesterday, and I did manage to weed about third of the front garden beds before the rain started, so the garden is beginning to look a little better than it did. Meanwhile, I've still been immersed in post-conference business. Planning for next year always starts instantly; there's barely a beat between ending and beginning. But I did get out to write with my friends in the evening--two not-very-promising drafts; still, doing the work felt good.

Now I idle in the cool morning air, listening to the man with the shopping cart of cans trundle from one recycling bin to the next. A Carolina wren cries teeterteeterteeter; Chuck peers industriously under a rug; everyone is at work, and I suppose I, too, can call what I'm doing work . . . wandering between past and future, bumbling among details. Sorrow. Fury. Dread. Those fires are still ravenous.

Maine hasn't been at its best lately, given the humidity and the apocalyptic skies, the Biddeford murder and the Senate race debacle. Add in the fact that my younger son is leading a canoe trip in the fire-ridden northern Ontario wilderness, and you can imagine that I'm jumpy. Yesterday his partner and I decided we needed to make sure he was okay, so we reached out to the camp for updates, which were reassuring. He is north of the Albany River fire and is continuing to paddle out of reach of it. The provincial lookouts have him on their radar; he's got a satellite phone so can call for evacuation if needed; the camp is very experienced with Canadian fire season. We feel better, and also do not feel better, but so it goes.

Jumpy is a good word for how I feel in general. Yesterday I had an intense conversation with a friend about my role as poet laureate. Our back-and-forth was more subtle than this paraphrase, but basically the question was, Do I now have a duty to be loud in support of righteousness? He thinks I do, and I agree with him. For me, the big issue is where and how to be loud . . . and when does being loud damage my ability to instigate longer-term change? Social media is a dangerous realm. So are school boards.

But, as he pointed out, one thing I can do is write occasional poems--that is, poems that comment on specific events--and then find a way to publicize them. The point of an occasional poem is timeliness, which means I'll have to squinch my eyes shut perfection-wise. On the other hand, speed is not always a bad thing, as I learned when I was writing my "Accident Sonnets." So yesterday I wrote and submitted a poem about the Biddeford killing, which a journal immediately accepted and will publish within a few days. This journal has a big subscriber list, so the poem will be read. It also has an audience that is predisposed to support progressive causes. Is preaching to the choir the best way to be public? Again, I twitch and worry. Yes, I do the majority of my teaching in a conservative area of the state, and I have always seen this work as activism. But who among us truly believes in poems?

For the moment the windows are open. This makes young Charles so happy: he loves to sit by the screen door admiring chipmunks and sparrows.

Overnight there were severe storm warnings for inland Maine, but I don't think the coast got much rain from the hoopla, though a thunderclap broke over Portland that was loud enough to wake the dead. That means I'll probably need to water the garden this morning, before today's squalid heat kicks in and I shut up the house and disappoint the cat.

The weather has kept me out of the garden, except for watering and quick harvesting. The beds are weedy, but there's not much I can do about that until the heat breaks. Instead, I've tried to focus on catching up on house chores--bathrooms, floors, laundry--and dealing with various errands. Yesterday I went to city hall and transferred my old license plates to the new car. I did a bunch of post-conference paperwork. I also encouraged myself to sit down and read--something I haven't been able to do much of for more than two weeks. I'm still working my way through Great Expectations, and I know that resurrecting my reading hours is the first step toward resurrecting my writing hours.

Recouping sleep is the second step. Last night, despite the thunder, I slept almost solidly from 8:45 till 5 a.m. This was after taking several little catnaps during the day. I know I'm behaving a bit like a convalescent, but so be it. Sleep is as important as poems.

And despite my doziness, I'm walking, I'm thinking, I'm getting stuff done. My wedding ring is back on my finger. Gloria sports her Maine plates. Pip is stupidly in love with cold-hearted Estella. I slice up cucumbers and toss a macaroni salad. A word slips in edgewise.

Parents and Children

Yesterday morning, I drove downtown to pick up my newly resized wedding ring, which hasn't fit me for years. My son is getting married this summer, and I want to wear my ring on the day he first wears his. 

Yesterday morning, on a Maine street 20 minutes from my house, licensed thugs killed a young father in his car. He was working legally in this country, had a social security number, and was not the official target of their hunt. According to bystanders, as he was dying, he was still explaining, I tried to stop. The murder took place in front of the man's daughter, who was wearing Bluey pajamas.

This morning I'm sitting in my old familiar couch corner, with my old familiar coffee cup, listening to Chuckie crunch up his chow, listening to a loud cardinal whistling in the maples, listening to the subdued hum of city traffic. I'm home, I'm home, I'm home, and very, very glad to be here.

The conference is always one of my favorite weeks of the year, but it's exhausting . . . so much work, so much focused attention, so much social immersion. This year was even more intense than usual: by the time the sessions began, the faculty had already been engaged in a week of hard rehearsal. So it's no surprise we're sapped.

And of course home doesn't imply rest. My to-do list is long: piles of laundry, conference-related chores,  hauling a box to the UPS store, going to city hall to get permanent license plates, picking up my repaired wedding ring, catching up on housework, dealing with my dry and weedy garden, figuring out meals, et cetera, ad infinitum, blah blah blah.

The slide from conference busyness into home busyness is kind of disheartening, but so go the days. I'm tired. I'm lucky. I'm tired and lucky. 

 Sunset, with bonfire and lake.

That's one of the fine things about this lake: sunrise and sunset are equivalently lovely. I will miss them.

Once the school year begins, my relationship with the water diminishes. I drive past it. I look at it through windows. But I'm not down on the dock, not paddling my feet in the water, not watching kingfishers chase and quarrel in the gloaming. And there's something about conversations by the lake . . . the comfort of dipping in and out of closeness, and then an eagle sails overhead and we all lift our faces to the sky.

I'll be home in my own bed tonight.

The sky is cloudless this morning, but a steady small breeze kicks through the trees, and mist feathers the lake. Even in a sweater, I'm a bit shivery out here on the deck.

Yesterday afternoon we had a few off hours. I ate ice cream. I paddled in the lake. I took a nap. Then I celebrated the participants at their poetry reading, danced ridiculously at the afterparty, and slept like a stone. So this morning my body exudes that particular tingly, soft self-satisfaction that only an orgy of lake water, disco, and a bed under an open window can provide.

That's one thing about this job: directing the conference is, without doubt, hard, hard work. But the place insists on itself, and summer by the lake is play.