I worked in my study all morning and then, around noon, ventured out to Target to look for new pillowcases (ours are suddenly disintegrating). For some reason, the place was packed with Canadians--Quebecois license plates everywhere, hundreds of vacationing families chattering in French . . . I wondered if I'd accidentally crossed an international border instead of driven 15 minutes to South Portland. It was all very surprising but exciting, too, and I came home with my pillowcases feeling as if I'd been on a small adventure by accident, though nothing had actually happened except for being surrounded by a language I understand only haltingly.

It's all ear work, though . . . poetry all morning, singing along to my favorite playlist in the car, and then standing in line behind the inscrutable grievances of French-speaking children. "Tout le monde [something or other]!" one teenager kept admonishing her father. "Tout le monde!" And he, avoiding her eye, stared down into his cart, which contained twelve half gallons of bottled water and nothing else.

I woke this morning to another small spat of rain, but it seems to have stopped now. We got more than an inch yesterday--very good news for the garden--and I think the day will be fairly cool. Maybe today will be the day I wear a long-sleeved shirt for the first time in weeks. I should do some weeding in the beds along the lane, pull out bolting lettuce and arugula, sow another round of salad greens. I've got more work to do on the sheaf of poems I've been combing through, more notes to jot down about "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (which I've now copied out three times, and will probably copy out a few more times before Teresa and I meet . . . oh, what I'm learning about repetition and metrical disruption! This poem is a master class in sound.)