The temperature is 25 degrees this morning, and the ground is still patched with snow from Sunday's storm. My garden is done for: the wet snow has smashed the last few fall greens into pulp. The storm coincided with the clock shift, so now it really does feel like winter: darkness creeping in at four in the afternoon, a fire burning all day in the stove, lamplight glinting on snow crystals, a flock of juncos fluttering up from the driveway. It's time for me to start thinking about baking Emily Dickinson's black cake.

I am not very like Dickinson. She was tiny and I am tall. She lived in a big brick house in the middle of town. I live in a small aluminum-sided house in the middle of nowhere. She was a spider in her web, waiting for vibrations, then biting. I am more like a chipmunk running back and forth, back and forth, back forth, in and out of my hole, my cheeks crammed with sunflower seeds. Notice, however, how interested we both are in food. Also, a cat might eat either of us.

Drama's Vitallest Expression is the Common Day
That arise and set about Us--
Other Tragedy