It's UPS with two parcels! ... a handsome lad, guesses it's my birthday and asks how old I am. He acts surprised he's a decade younger. We linger at … - Julia Alvarez

what I know from experience: that writing is a vocation and a practice over a lifetime, with its ups and downs. It teaches me humility, the great democracy of each time having to start over.

I dreamed of stretching my pastry dough out
to cover the earth with a crust so fine
my love would think it was nothing
but the world at his feet,
baked by the summer sun,
dusted with cinnamon.

I tried to listen, take notes ...
...and stared out
on the New England meadow straight from Frost:
acres of grasses and flowers tossed by
a wind which whirled with the continual
roar of a thousand voices from Babel.