Though mornings and evenings are cool, the days have become suddenly balmy. By mid-morning yesterday I was outside in shirtsleeves pruning the lilies and iris, weeding empty vegetable rows, preparing beds for winter. Yet the day felt like early September.

In the afternoon T and I went into town to do our version of shopping--e.g., idling through bookstores and vintage shops. I found a fabulous black mohair coat; he found a 1960s-era short-sleeved cotton plaid shirt of the sort he loves. We bought our kid a cookbook for his birthday. We ate dumplings at the Cantonese restaurant. We ambled the streets in the soft air, then drove back home to our allotted tasks: he went down into the basement and finished edge-binding the cabinet doors he's building; I spatchcocked two Cornish hens.

But the interlude is over. This afternoon I'll head north for an overnight in Monson, teach the kids tomorrow, hustle home, embroil myself in various obligations, teach teachers on Saturday . . . ah, autumn's breathless demands--though I do now have a really nice coat to wear, should it ever get cold again.

I'll be working this week with the notion of audience, via the epistolary poem--essentially the same lesson for both kids and teachers, though the teacher session will be compressed and will involve some standing back and asking, "Okay, what just happened? How could this work in your setting?" It will be interesting (for me) to do a classroom trial just before doing a teacher presentation. I'll let you know how it goes.

Otherwise: immersed in Olivia Laing's The Garden against Time--she's really, really good and I am thinking of writing her a fan letter; mourning, without surprise, the Mets' loss to the Dodgers; wondering what I'll do with all of those pears ripening in the bushel basket in my living room; recovering from book launches; scouring the kitchen sink; fidgeting with a poem draft; going for a long walk before breakfast . . . the usual life, words and soap and the solid thunk of feet on pavement, under the poignant sunshine, under the shedding leaves.