Socked in like a New England lobster fisherman. It looks like snow blowing by but it’s actually fog. Some run-off foam in the water just adds to the allure. (Yesterday morning.)

We have challenges enough, do we not? With every day presenting its difficulties, a multitude of small assaults on our well-being. We build up no credit for facing these struggles, and instead are told it's possible there may also be bombs in the basement, strapped with electrical tape to the pillars of our sanity and our humanity.

Why then choose to add more difficulty to the day?

A particular individual has decided to get up early in the morning and go down to the river with the understanding that a number of other individuals will do the same. If that happens, they will form a group, and as a group they will put a boat in the river and attempt to row it.

Rowing a boat, any boat, is difficult and so these individuals have been made a promise. They've been promised that if they keep coming down to the river and trying to row the boat, something good will happen.

Today as we began the last part of our row, turning to head for the dock, I caught that look of frustration. There had been moments of good movement over the course of the practice, touches of the ideal, grasped but then let slip, making the bad strokes feel even worse.

Two metal towers of the city's water intake system protrude above the surface of the river and a pair of geese have taken to resting on the one closest to the riverbank. As we pass by them, trying to find a few good strokes before we land, the gander raises his concerns.

He yells.

"Always with the noise, and the straining, and the flailing! What kind of bird are you? You have eight wings but you never fly!"

I can only respond, "We want to fly. We are trying."

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found   
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,   
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.   
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world   
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence   
Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind   
While there is still time.

—Philip Larkin

"Bang. You're dead."

I called her beautiful, although I don’t believe she heard it.
But others did, and so began, a little trial with a verdict.

Please demonstrate you understand her journey and her dreams.
And did you consult this 12 point list of all that beauty means?

I was called out I must admit, I spoke before I thought.
I stand corrected once again, as often as is not.

I hemmed, I hawed, I dropped my gaze, I was really on the spot.
Let me re-phrase, I begged the court, I meant to say, “She’s hot.”

d.j.-2021-03-18

Treats received today from my good friend Will Leathem. I read them immediately.

All these acquisitions, and any that aren't here but on the way, are justified by the fact that...I wanted them.