Monday, April 27, 2026

Cough Cough. Last Sunday Night with Monday Morning Frustrations for a While Now. This Week Ends Another Semester of Classes. Time to Ride Low.

Summer programs begin in July. They are plentiful, lofty, robust, exhausting, and well-recognized. I will take the labor of supporting them any day over the days of meetings. Teaching is fine, as is research, but the amount of time spent in meetings, retreats, etc. that is a total waste is mind-numbing. In the summer, we meet very little. I simply report what needs to be accomplished and it gets accomplished. It's not all the other bantering and social positioning. It's simply great teachers doing wonderful work for kids.

The lawn was mowed for a second time yesterday (much easier this time) and it's prepped for the upcoming yard work I hope to this weekend as I think about gardening, planting some shade where the neighbor cut it all down (on his side) and cleaning up the backyard aesthetics. 

I'm thankful for Pam who made chicken enchiladas so I didn't have to cook and for Rico who entertained Karal extensively. I also got a lot of grading done and some of the laundry put away (emphasis on some). I also baked two cakes for the last grad classes, a tradition I've kept for 15 years at Fairfield for the last night of classes. They eat and work, while I walk around a workshop.

Yesterday's prompt was simply to take a drive and write about the backroads. I, on the other hand, like to shorten my drive so I can get out of the car and walk. The views never get old, so #VerseLove26, day 26, was about outdoor writing once again. I was thinking there might be a nice collection to put together of CT poets doodling their outdoors....that's something to keep an eye out for. 

Lordship 

b.r.crandall


it’s easier on 

weekends to

drive along

short beach

(larger than 

the longer one

where teenagers

occupy cars

as if drive-ins

still exist).


We park Katniss

(never-green-no more)

and leash Karal

for a walk along

waving gray lines

that meet an 

eggshell horizon —

where the

lemon strip

hovers between

pigeon-blue clouds

& glacier stone.


This is our prospect

of an ocean,

a movement along

the shoreline

(to curb our 

inner drive) —

where Golden Hill

Paugusetts once 

hunted deer —

where ferries

transport travelers 

from Bridgeport 

to Port Jeff —

where ospreys

hawk the sea

with barbed talons

in a hunt for 

bluefish, sup,

& fluke





Cough Cough. Last Sunday Night with Monday Morning Frustrations for a While Now. This Week Ends Another Semester of Classes. Time to Ride Low.

Summer programs begin in July. They are plentiful, lofty, robust, exhausting, and well-recognized. I will take the labor of supporting them ...