Six degrees this morning, and the ground stiff with snow. This is the Maine I remember, the Maine of those long winters in Harmony . . . me in my coveralls breaking ice in the livestock water pails, the boys in their bright coats sliding down the moonspun driveway to wait for the schoolbus, a thread of smoke rising from the chimney as T tries to get the shop warm enough so that he can work without his gloves on.

I don't exactly miss all of that struggle, but elegy isn't about missing something. It's about knowing that it's gone.

Today T goes back to work, and I go back to work . . . though I worked yesterday too, and he did as well, but on loose time instead of on schedule. I edited a chapter and revised a poem and cleaned bathrooms and did laundry. He did some photo printing and editing, then hung the last of the kitchen-cupboard doors--these glass-faced beauties. 

His cabinet-making skills fill me with awe. It's hard to believe we possess such a lovely room. I could open and close those doors all day long.

But I won't. I'll get back to editing, I'll get back to reading writing samples, I'll finish the weekly house chores, and I'll run my thoughts over my teaching prep. I'll spend time on my mat and I'll spend time with a poem draft, and I'll try to hold onto my promise to myself: to endure this administration by focusing as hard as I can on the fabric of my community and on the exigencies of my art. I will not wallow in pundit mongering. I will not read fraudulent self-help memes. I will not groan and bewail on social media. We all know what we're in for, from him and from his pack of devils. What would Dante do? What would Milton do? What would Austen do? What would Baldwin do? They'd write and they'd read and they'd write. I think I will too.