To all you teachers out there: here's a link to Anne Britting Oleson's blog post about starting every day's class with a poem. Not only did Anne attend the 2010 Frost Place Conference on Poetry and Teaching, but she is also an accomplished poet in her own right. Yet even poets can find the idea of sharing poetry scary, especially in the classroom. Nonetheless, she persevered, and good things happened.

Early morning. Overcast. Sky sagging into the trees; maple leaves glowing like Mardi Gras beads, and meanwhile the prim firs point discreetly heavenward.

I am thinking about books: books that I am reading, books that I am writing; about the distant cawing of crows, about tires on the road and the dregs of coffee in my cup. I am sitting here in my old bathrobe, alone in the house, yet the house is filled with sounds. Birds cry through the open window, and the refrigerator hums. The dog sighs. My heart beats. I am wishing for everything, for something, for nothing in particular. The planet spins, and I can feel it tilt.

At random I open my notebook and discover that I have copied out this passage from George Eliot's Middlemarch: "If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence."

My morning post is late because I got distracted by my husband, who is home today instead of building a porch in Skowhegan. He won't be home for long, however, because he is on his way to Belfast to deliver our collaborative display for the Belfast Poetry Festival. Tom will have six large photographs on the library walls, accompanied by three of my poems. They'll be up for the month of October, in case you feel like wandering into Belfast and looking at them. We'll also be doing a performance at the library on October 16 that involves reading and video. This is a new venture for us, and we're a little keyed up . . . though right now he's doing most of the work, while I hover and make coffee. I imagine he's relieved to know that on the 16th he'll get to recede (slightly) into the background while I don the poetry tap shoes and do the talking.

Tom also has an opening this Saturday at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art. He's one of 150 artists featured in a giant retrospective of Maine photography over the past decade. As an added bonus, the snacks at CMCA openings are usually excellent. Just ask my children.

Meanwhile, I've reached chapter 16 in Great Expectations and chapter 14 in Moby-Dick. How are the rest of you readers doing? Should we slow down to let you catch up? Or press forward?

I've just learned that today is the anniversary of Melville's death. Thought I'd pass that on, for those who like a frisson to accompany their reading assignments.

Teresa sent me a link to this NY Times article about whales, which she thought the rest of you Moby-Dick readers might be interested in. My favorite part describes a killer-whale fad in Puget Sound.

I sort of managed to sleep last night so I am feeling as if it might actually be possible to concentrate on something today. I dimly remember waving my arms around yesterday in a 10th-grade English class, although James hasn't relayed gossip about any egregious faux-pas. Possibly he's just being diplomatic.

After a scintillating trip to the grocery store, I spent the latter part of the afternoon sitting in drizzle at an elementary-school soccer game, which was more rewarding than it sounds because Paul scored two goals and also perfected his Agony of Defeat routine, which he has implemented as a melodramatic accompaniment to near-goals, out-of-bounds calls, etc. I was a little embarrassed, but other parents found his show amusing--perhaps because they've never asked him to clean a chicken house or redo his math homework.

Today it continues to rain and rain and rain here in Harmony, Maine, a situation that will have implications for soccer practice and minestrone making. Possibly it might even influence the baking of layer cakes. You never can tell. As Wordsworth says, "I began/My story early--not misled, I trust,/By an infirmity of love for days/Disowned by memory." This also goes for days that have barely started.

My four and a half days at Haystack were wonderful, though I could have done without the insomnia that is starting to make me feel like a tottering, squint-eyed invalid. I met some excellent people there and, what's more, took the plunge and began organizing poems into a new collection. I was amazed to discover that I already possess more than 50 manuscript pages. What a surprise. And here I thought I'd only been writing prose.

If I'd had a good night's sleep lately, I could write a more colorful entry about my Haystack experience. But I'm grasping at air this morning, and I suppose I should save my small stock of wherewithal for the 10th graders I'll be working with this afternoon.

Anyway: I came home to find two new publications on the coffee table: the new issue of Maine Magazine, which includes Tom's South Solon Meetinghouse photos interspersed with a few of my paragraphs; and New Walk Magazine, a U.K. journal that printed my name on the cover along with the name of Andrew Motion, who was Poet Laureate of England until 2009. I feel as if I have brushed the hem of fame's garment.

By the way, according to Wikipedia, "the salary of the [British laureateship] has varied, but traditionally includes some alcohol. Ben Jonson first received a pension of 100 marks, and later an annual 'terse of Canary wine.'" If Maine were to align itself with such a tradition, the state laureate would be likely to receive a few cases of Allen's coffee brandy and/or a suitcase of Bud Light. Maybe I should suggest the idea to the legislature.

Moby Expectations, chapter 12

As I mentioned yesterday, I'll be leaving tomorrow for Haystack and won't be home till Sunday afternoon. There's no Internet access there, so you won't hear from me unless I happen to venture off the property and find myself in a library or a coffeeshop or something. So as regards my function as official Moby-Dick and Great Expectations termagant: today is the only nagging you'll get.

I'll be bringing the novels with me, and I've already reached chapter 8 in both books. What if we aim for chapter 12 in both of them? And what if you use this post as your discussion base for the week's reading? To propel your comments, my only leading question is this: what is making you most uneasy?

I'm beginning to compile a list of the other books I'll be packing. So far I've got The Collected Shorter Poems of Hayden Carruth and Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night. I'm also considering King Lear and possibly Dorothy Sayers's Busman's Honeymoon. Wordsworth's Prelude ought to come along, and possibly George Herbert's poems as well. . . .

I know this is beginning to sound ridiculous. Book separation anxiety is why I never go to writers' retreats.