My dear mentor, Baron Wormser, died yesterday, only weeks after being diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. He died at home, quietly, with his wife and children and sister present. It was, his wife tells me, a good death.

I told her that I don't know whether the fact he died on my birthday is a weight or a lightness.

I told her that Baron made me, as a poet. He gave me myself.

Tom took me out for dinner last night and we had a celebration/wake.

My car got towed away to the shop. My phone is pulsing with love notes and sorrow notes. Apparently something shitty happened in the public realm yesterday, but I haven't been able to look at the news yet.

A small rain is falling. The scent rises through the open window.