It is nearly impossible to remember how cold I was last week. Today it's bullfrog weather--air sultry and thick, grass sopped from last night's thunderstorm. By 9 a.m. the heat is already pressing through a veil of mist. The pods on my peavines are fattening. The arugula has bolted into white, square-toothed blossoms. Japanese beetles are fornicating on the rose leaves.

On today's schedule, music: first, Paul's piano recital; then an evening of band practice. I am reading A. S. Byatt's The Children's Book and am filled with fin-de-siecle melancholy, which is not helped by the fact that Blogger won't let me add an accent grave to siecle. 


Here's a poem by Edward Thomas, dear lost friend of Robert Frost's heart. He died in France, killed in action in 1917.

The Cherry Trees  

Edward Thomas

The cherry trees bend over and are shedding,
On the old road where all that passed are dead,
Their petals, strewing the grass as for a wedding
This early May morn when there is none to wed.

And here is the poem that Frost wrote after Thomas was killed.

To E. T. 

Robert Frost 

I slumbered with your poems on my breast,
Spread open as I dropped them half-read through
Like dove wings on a figure on a tomb,
To see if in a dream they brought of you 

I might not have the chance I missed in life
Through some delay, and call you to your face
First soldier, and then poet, and then both,
Who died a soldier-poet of your race. 

I meant, you meant, that nothing should remain
Unsaid between us, brother, and this remained--
And one thing more that was not then to say:
The Victory for what it lost and gained. 

You went to meet the shell's embrace of fire
On Vimy Ridge, and when you fell that day
The war seemed over more for you than me,
But now for me than you--the other way. 

How over, though, for even me who knew
The foe thrust back unsafe beyond the Rhine,
If I was not to speak of it to you
And see you pleased once more with words of mine?

I thought you might like a glimpse into the land of Frost. The first photo is the barn, where we hold the Conference on Poetry and Teaching. This is no dandified ex-barn-turned-conference-center: it's got mice and squirrels and the scent of old tools and mosquitoes and dampness and no heat . . . and the "no heat" bit was pretty hard this year, given a week of 55-degree rain. Nonetheless, when I polled the participants about the possibility of moving to a warmer place, not one person wanted to spend the week anywhere else.

The second photo is the front porch of Frost's house, where we ate lunch and huddled in the evening and stared across the valley at the mists of Lafayette Mountain. As you can see from my flipflops, the temperature did manage to moderate on the last day of the conference. For most of the week I was wearing winter boots and a turtleneck.

As far as I'm concerned, this was one of our best conferences yet. The participants were varied and engaged and heartfelt and brilliant and modest and hilarious and idealistic and pragmatic, and they loved loved loved loved words with all their hearts. It was such an honor to sit among them as a colleague.

Things are going well here in Franconia, but, no, I have not seen a bear yet. I am resigned to the possibility that I may never see a bear in Franconia, even though they seem to frequent the back porches of every other resident in town. Nor have I seen the groundhog this year, though I'm told he's been arguing with his wife underneath the house all spring. Apparently groundhog arguments are quite amusing to overhear, and I look forward to anthropomorphizing his complaints for you.


In other news, I took a nap and went outlet shopping. None of you will be surprised about the nap, but a few may be surprised about the shopping. Outlets are not my natural habitat.


Robert Frost would say hello if he knew I were writing to you. However, he's out in the barn having an arm wrestling contest with Walt Whitman.

This morning I received an email from Judy Taylor, painter of the murals that I mention in my essay "Labor: A Romance," telling me that she'd read the piece, liked it, and was sharing it with others.  I don't know Judy personally, so this was a surprise and an honor. I'm glad to know that what I said made sense to her.


Today I leave for the Frost Place; and as usual, I have no idea about whether or not I'll be able to write to you while I'm gone. The weather is supposed to shift from crazy humid to crazy dank. Ergo, packing is difficult.


I'm also trying to decide what to read tomorrow night. If you have suggestions, feel free to leave me a note.


And the violin comes too. Maybe it will emerge from its case, maybe not. It's like a caterpillar that way.

My essay "Labor: A Romance" is out in the IWW Book Review.


And our band has some new photos. As you can see, we all accidentally wore matching outfits.

It's been so hot. The peonies I bring into the house as buds are overblown by sunset. Gusts of thunderstorm wind carry the fragrance of roses and wet asphalt. The gloaming is overrun with fireflies and quarreling hummingbirds. The blue-edged sky is a painting by Titian. In Boston Big Papi hits a grand slam as Tom and I play cribbage and drink ice tea. Upstairs, in our attic bedroom, the fan roars.


Now, at dawn, the temperature still hovers at 70 degrees. Everyone except the poodle and the hummingbirds is still in bed. I am sitting at my kitchen table, drinking coffee, half-reading an Iris Murdoch novel, thinking about the poems of William Blake, trying to remind myself to plant a new batch of lettuce seeds before I leave for the Frost Place on Saturday. As usual at this time of year, I have been poring through Frost's notebooks, and his voice--cranky, opinionated, mysteriously exact--is lingering in my ear. In sound, it is nothing like the austere cacophony of Blake.


Now, at dawn, the chickadees are repeating their little hoarse tune. The rose-breasted grosbeaks crack seed at the feeder. The sky is a deep, almost blackened, blue, veiled by linen cloud. Frost writes, "There is a residue of extreme sorrow that nothing can be done about and over it poetry lingers to brood with sympathy. I have heard poetry charged with having a vested interest in sorrow."

Yes. And this beauty is its own sorrow, one that is also such pleasure to mourn.

Got up, got all the boys up, drove to the berry farm, picked 45 pounds of strawberries.

I guess I know what I'm doing for the rest of the day.  Too bad I can't read and hull berries simultaneously, but I think I'd cut off my finger with the paring knife.

I foresee a great deal of whipped cream in my future.