Which childhood? The one that never ends? O you,

still a child, and slow to grow.

Still talking to God and thinking the snow

falling is the sound of God listening,

and winter is the high-ceilinged house

where God measures with one eye

an ocean wave in octaves and minutes,

and counts on many fingers

all the ways a child learns to say Me.

~ Excerpt froom “A Hymn to Childhood,” by Li-Young Lee

Pancakes. Wave and my daughter both want them. Then they are, late, out the door. But it’s Monday and must be. Fudgy and dogs fed. There is a chill. Out the door I go to the river where the trees have lost their bright leaves. November is near. And I swim my laps and go to poetry. I have woken early with some revised lines in my head for this morning’s poem, I have put them down and sent it off. Poem about a rooster. It’s very well received. I will make a few changes. I hear, at the last moment, that the poet Li-Young Lee is reading tonight in Lexington and I know I must go and hear him. I beg off tonight’s peer poetry workshop and go. Meet my friend Gale there. He is amazing. His poems, his reading, his heart, his mind. Stunning experience. Gale agrees. I walk to my car, love-struck. Frank left at dawn.