Yesterday's peaceful vibe was shattered when water suddenly started pouring onto the kitchen counter via a screw hole in the wall. "Ice dam," Tom said, and was quickly up on a ladder scraping snowpack away from the dormer seam. He got the flow stopped almost immediately, but ugh. If it's not one problem, it's another around here. (The peaceful vibe was also shattered by war, but I am not going to talk about that just now. You/we are already overwhelmed.)

Well, nothing more can be done about the roof till spring, other than to make sure we keep that section raked. Limp into the future: that's my household motto.

Otherwise the day was easygoing (except for war). I caught up on a bunch of computer chores. We took a walk to the Asian grocery. I made potato pancakes for dinner. Young Chuck got his nails trimmed and later, with much effort and concentration, pushed a sliver of kindling under the rug.

This morning the little birds are singing loudly (despite war). They must be reacting to the longer days, and I wonder if they sense the tree sap rising as well. Today I'm going to walk up the street to see if our neighborhood snowdrops are visible yet. When I was in Brooklyn, I saw a few daffodil spikes poking up in front gardens, all ready to be squashed by the blizzard. Life is so obstinate. (As is death.)

I've been thinking about my manuscript . . . not fretting exactly; more just puzzling over my lifelong urge to make books that hardly anyone will read. If published, this would be my seventh full-length poetry collection, my eleventh book. The number is startling. How have I managed this? I still picture myself as the child with a scarlet "Sloppy and Lazy" sign pinned to her metaphorical chest.

There's a sadness in finishing a book, though of course there's pleasure too. Perhaps that's why I resist putting together manuscripts until all of a sudden I can't help myself and they fly together as if under enchantment. The emotional complications: why-bother intersecting with ambition . . . not ambition as in fame or any expectation of readership. Rather, as in climbing the impossible path. The book as the pause, as one acknowledges the ever harder task to come.

You know the painting I mean.

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