I'm heading up north this afternoon for band practice, so I'll be on the road tomorrow morning and probably won't get a chance to write to you. I haven't played music for a few weeks and am worried about my rustiness, but c'est la vie, I guess. At least the days are longer now and I don't have to drive up in the dark. At least it's baseball season and I can listen to the Red Sox as I drive over the mud and the frost heaves to my bed at my friends' house.

Yesterday I got a flurry of Frost Place applications: four in one day! That was exciting, and it also made me realize that I should warn any of you who hopes to take part in the optional Writing Intensive but hasn't submitted an app yet: Submit now, or you risk losing your place. Because of space constraints, I have to cap the WI numbers at twelve, and we only have three openings left. So do not delay.

I also wanted to let you know that I've got some openings for manuscript work in May. A few of you have mentioned that you'd like me to look at poem sheafs or complete manuscripts, and now would be a good time to contact me, before my Frost Place rush begins. In addition, if you have visiting writer openings for the fall or can negotiate any reading/workshop opportunities, we could talk about that possibility too. I know my move to Portland has thrown me off track, but I am ready to climb back onto the train. And traveling out of state is so much easier for me than it used to be. Do be in touch.

My poem "Petition" is up at Vox Populi today.

The piece was triggered by one of those public notices printed in the classified sections of newspapers--in this case, from the State of Maine Probate Court, which was going through the legal motions of tracking down a parent who had disappeared.

The print version of this poem includes some indents, but WordPress doesn't manage them well, so the editor and I reconfigured the format slightly. I'd be glad to send you a copy if you're interested in examining how the indentation affects the tenor of the piece.

Yesterday the Prom was populated with crowds of dogs playing Frisbee, and girls chasing each other around in their Easter dresses, and lovers canoodling on benches, and families having picnics, and small children squealing, and young women tanning in various states of undress, and a remarkable number of couples in color-coordinated outfits. Today will be quieter, but the weather should be just as warm. For now, the only action is a sailboat and three guys laughing in Spanish.

I had an early morning dream last night about one of my publishers, who turns out to be about 8 feet tall and who made scurrilous remarks about my intelligence when we were trapped together in an elevator or something. Later in the dream she morphed into Captain of the Rescue Ship during Armageddon, with her version of Saint Peter at the Gates being the crabby janitor at the Harmony School. He decided not to let one Harmony citizen onto the ship but grudgingly gave me a place. I woke up before I learned whether the publisher would kick me off the boat if she knew I were there.

As a result of this dream, I feel like I've been bonked with a cartoon hammer. I hope the coffee helps.

A teeny-tiny bit of country in the city. I am trying.

I am alone this Easter morning.

Yesterday afternoon Tom drove the boy back to college, but he'll be home tonight, in time for dinner. In the meantime I have mostly been idle. I spent some time on the deck, watching the walkers walk and the sailboats sail. I spent some time washing dishes and listening to baseball. I trudged to the fish market and bought crabmeat and a whole ocean perch for dinner tonight. I did not open the folder of my uncle's papers.

Now the window is open, and a car hisses by on the wet pavement. Remnants of last night's rain silver the deck railings, and my little herb plants are glistening in the thin wet daylight.

Yesterday, when I drove past my land in Harmony, I could see that the new owner has begun to cut some trees. I am trying not to think about that.

But today I feel so rootless. It is hard.

 A bright morning, but cool. And now, on the deck outside my bedroom window, sit two fat planters, one packed with herbs, the other seeded with various greens: mesclun mix, arugula, chard, red kale. I am inordinately pleased. I guess that's what happens when an elegist relinquishes her 40 acres . . . she can't stop staring at two containers of dirt.

Later today the boy and I will drive north into the land of mud and sodden snow and roaring woodstoves and dirty boots and black skies. Later today I may bring myself to open the folder of my uncle's papers that my father gave me a few days ago.

I have been slowly reading Marilynne Robinson's novel Home, slowly re-reading Tolstoy's War and Peace, slowly copying out Carruth's Sleeping Beauty. I have been talking to editors about both of my poetry manuscripts. I have been editing a book about censorship, and mulling over the poetry workshop I'm scheduled to teach in May, and prepping for the Frost Place conference. I have been sweeping floors and washing clothes. I have been criss-crossing the highways of New England and New York. I have been listening to baseball games, to a podcast about Grace Kelly, to birdsong, to the songs of Bob Marley, to the chatter of my son. I have been walking up steep hills in the sun and the rain.

"Place is the now / which is eternal. And we are passing on." --Hayden Carruth, "Vermont"

Well, I'm back from Vermont, and the boy is once again in the house: sleeping, eating, listening to baseball, and making his parents watch cute-animal videos and hip YouTube explanations of how leitmotif works in Schubert's lieder. Tomorrow he and I will head north for an overnight with our friends in the woods, but for the moment we are perched here in the doll-house, and I will attempt to get some work done this morning while he is still unconscious.

Spring seems to have set her foot firmly on the ground. After a day of rain, the grass in the park is greening and the air has softened. The doll-house is suffused with the scent of hyacinths, and I am itching to plant things on the deck. Probably I won't have very good luck out there as the exposure is due north, but that won't stop me from trying. But first I have to acquire pots and soil and seeds and plants and watering cans, and I have no idea where the nurseries are in this town, and I have no idea how hard it will be to manage all of this while climbing in and out of a window onto the deck and simultaneously fighting with a cat who is plotting an escapade. There is always something new to learn in this world.