The air is clouded, heavy. My bare feet stick to the humid kitchen floor. A sparrow clicks and taps at the feeder, and a small wind lifts the shadow-sprung spruce branches. Once again, my house is full of sleeping boys.

I have been reading Byron's "Darkness":

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.

The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars

Did wander darkling in the eternal space,

Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth

Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air. . . .

Summer is sliding to its appointed end. My thoughts, unformed, begin to hazard a word or two, a phrase, a sentence. So strange how my writing pattern follows the year's. Garrulous summer overflows with chatter. But fall and winter are for invention and loneliness.

First thing this morning we went out for hay. The fog was heavy, the newly mown grass drenched and green. Nowhere in the world could have been more beautiful than my tiny patch of earth.

But now the fog has lifted and the heat has moved in. My barn smells of grass; the crickets are screeing, the mourning doves mourning. Corn is in tassel, and cabbages are Leviathans.

A morning like this might transform anyone into a Romantic, but I already was one.

from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

George Gordon, Lord Byron

Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part

Of me and of my soul, as I of them?

Is not the love of these deep in my heart

With a pure passion? should I not contemn

All objects, if compared with these? and stem

A tide of suffering, rather than forego

Such feelings for the hard and worldly phlegm

Of those whose eyes are only turn'd below,

Gazing upon the ground, with thoughts which dare not glow?

Yesterday's mail brought me the Sewanee Review's summer issue, which includes my essay "Dickens: A Love Letter." I've been told that eventually the editors plan to excerpt a bit of that essay on the Sewanee website; I'll let you know when that happens.

In the meantime, here's an odd thing: my friend Nate Fisher decided to put my poem "Clockwork" to music. Nate is an MFA candidate at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville, and "Clockwork" is forthcoming in the program's journal, Sou'wester. Here's the link to Nate's recording. (Perhaps I'm being fussy, but I feel bound to explain that he does add other words before starting in on the poem.)

Yes, intrepid and discerning readers, yesterday's mystery book was The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy. Since speaking to you, I have not advanced much further into it, having been busy picking an extraordinary number of raspberries and dealing with various editorial snafus. (What kind of word is snafu anyway? I have an intuition that it is somehow etymologically related to moot. Whatever their connection, both words sound as if they have entered English by way of Smurf.)

I was not exactly honest yesterday when I said I thought I might never write another essay again. In fact, I'm presently writing another essay, albeit a very short one. Really, it's more of an introduction than an essay, which is why I forgot to mention it. A few months ago, the editor of LocusPoint contacted me about curating a Maine feature in his journal. As you'll see when you hit the link, LocusPoint focuses on poetry and place . . . up to this point, cities as place. (Our Maine feature will change all that.) Anyway, I'm composing the opening essay, and I'm looking forward to sharing the poetry of several Maine poets whose work I have been following for a number of years now. Most are not well known outside of Maine, so I'm excited to think that they'll get a bit of national exposure.

Probably one of these days I'll bring myself to write to you about the book I'm presently rereading for the thousandth time. It is, essentially, a very bad book, so it may take me some time to figure out a way to explain why I keep rereading it. I estimate that it's at least as bad as Millbank; and though, as you know, I did manage to write an entire essay on that novel, I feel that I may not have the stamina to repeat the experience. I'm in one of those moods in which I'm beginning to imagine that I may never write another essay again. So many words; how will I ever do it?

In any case, here are some details about the book I am presently rereading:

The jolly innkeeper is described as "mine worthy host." This is not dialogue.

The yokel-ish patrons of the inn speak in mysterious dialect: for instance, instead of saying exactly, they say 'xactly.

Aristocrats = good. Revolutionaries = bad.

Sample of actual conversation: "Afraid be demmed! Do you impugn my bravery, Madame?"

I'm sure you are on tenterhooks to learn more about this fine piece of literature. Or perhaps you, too, spent long childhood hours in dark library corners with this very book. If so, you may be interested in reading what the author says about writing it:"It was God's will that I should. And to you moderns, who perhaps do not believe as I do, I will say, 'In the chain of my life, there were so many links, all of which tended towards bringing me to the fulfillment of my destiny.'"

I suppose that's as good an explanation as any for why I reread the damn thing.

This is a very late post because the sky is threatening thunderstorm and I had to pick raspberries before the clouds burst.

I've come to the conclusion that picking raspberries in my disorderly patch is a form of guerilla yoga. One must assume uncomfortable yet well-balanced positions, frequently semi-upside-down or leaning forward on bended knee. Calm and deep breaths are required if one is to hold such a position without tipping over sideways and smashing fruit, breaking branches, and/or spilling the loot. Likewise, the harvester must exhibit fortitude among raspy thorns and mosquitoes that choose to bite at the exact moment when one's hands are overflowing with delicate squashable berries.

Later today I will pickle beans and possibly make a raspberry pie. First, however, there must be copyediting, and then some more copyediting, and then possibly a trip to the bank.

For some reason, the phrase "supernaturally mundane" springs to mind. I wonder what my unreliable brain is up to this time.

If you glance at my "Upcoming Appearances" list, you'll notice that next April I have two central New Hampshire gigs on the same day. And because central New Hampshire is at least four hours away from Harmony and I'll already have to spend two nights away from home to accomplish even this much poetry action, I'm writing this note to let you know that I'm available to visit your classroom or whatever. We can think of it as "going on tour." Maybe I'll grow my hair out and start carrying around a furry guitar.

In other news: lawn mowing and editing. Also raspberries and a new Red Sox pitcher and quarrelsome members of Congress who ought to be dope-slapped, one and all.