A clearing.

My soon-to-be-Chicagoan friend took off this afternoon, and I have spent my subsequent hours walking and reading and walking and thinking and walking some more and writing my newest poem, which is coming along, coming along. I must have walked four miles today, around and around the village, around and around my excellent friends' house, under the watertower, through the woods, to the bookstore and back, up the paths, down the paths.

On my evening's walk, a walk that garnered me not only fine chocolate but also Jane Kenyon's Collected Poems, I stopped in the middle of the street to take these pictures for you. That's twice--two streets, two middle-of-those-street stops, two pictures. I am loving my village tonight. (I am also loving the fact that the skunk that walked up to my screened porch tonight, so close that I could see it and could even have kicked it had I been so stupid, just kept right on walking, even though he could see me. Even though that can't have been a pleasant surprise. I know it wasn't for me.)