Saturday morning: a small lie-in, a wood fire, hot coffee, my couch corner . . . the exact right way to start the weekend. Last night T and I had dinner out with old friends; we came home find the Mets managing to hang on for a big win; I went to bed early and fell straight to sleep and dreamed of my childhood house in Rhode Island. And now on this cold morning I am listening to kindling crackle, watching golden flame leap up from split maple, thinking without hurry about the various tasks of the day--rolling up garden hoses, planting garlic, spreading compost, emptying plant pots, maybe picking pears from a friend's tree . . . the puttery chores of autumn.

Yesterday I started reading Olivia Laing's memoir/essay The Garden against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise, which tells the tale of resurrecting an old formal garden in Sussex, England, but also wanders into literature and history and geography. Laing is a very musical writer, thoughtful and elegant and new to me: this is a friend's library book, passed on, and its patient tone fits well into my own gardening state of mind, at least at this time of year, when the beds are rumpled and messy and my growing ambitions stretch no further than a thick covering of leaves and a long sheltered sleep.

The freezer is filled with sauce and greens and wild mushrooms. The window frames are draped with peppers. The basement is stacked with firewood. The mantle is lined with winter bouquets--dried grasses and flowers that must sate my eyes till daffodil season returns. The kitchen windowsill is gaudy with nosegays of late marigolds and sage. Half-dry basil and parsley and mint hang in bunches in the back room. Outside, kale and lettuce and fennel still flutter bravely. Riches spill from this dollhouse grove, this unlikely speck of earth.

First light peers through maple boughs, still thick with green-brown leaves. The cat settles himself onto the hearthrug. The refrigerator hums. Though I am not thinking about poems, the air is thick with them, floating like motes of yeast in a baker's kitchen.