Early Afternoon March

Late Morning March

The air through the open window is the same
as when you breathed for what you don’t believe in now
and such anachronistic miracles are dizzying
separating you from local time.

I remember every spring that came before this
linked in the smells the city makes.
The armature of scattered selves
fastening you to year-to-year.

I wrote that poem in 2001, and it's perhaps the only thing I wrote then that remains true to this day. We're crawling out from under cover. Today I caught a whiff of rotting garbage, which was music to my nose because rotting garbage is unfrozen garbage. And now I am sitting in front of an open window, accompanied by shining sun and a cool wind. I had forgotten how wonderful March in Canada is. (Wind is a bit torrential. Must close window.) Britain is springtime all the time, and I loved that- green in January. Spring in Japan, as we know, came suddenly and April there is meteorological perfection. But spring in Canada- can't be counted on, more a promise than an actual delivery. But oh what a promise. It's almost worth it.

Today has been a bit brilliant, based upon the meeting I had this morning with Camilla Gibb. She's the Writer in Residence at Massey College and on top of having written one of the best books I've read in ages, she was lovely and I got a lot out of our conversation.

What else? I really enjoyed The International Women's Day In Pictures in The Globe. Fun Milestones in Pop Feminism. And introducing The Blooker Prize, which I am doing a seminar on next week how exciting. A golden age of British women's writing indeed. Ali Smith's The Accidental was extraordinarily unlike anything I've read before. Amazing. I'm reading The Collected Stories of Grace Paley, and Voices from Iran which is interesting but terribly written. And rereading The Elements of Style.

To lunch.