Christmas comes early. A 6 a.m. phone call to confirm that it is a Snow Day. The holidays properly begin tomorrow but today feels like a bonus.

I drop the girls off. Go to buy bread and vegetables. Make (another) pumpkin soup. Resume Lady Chatterley's Lover (stalled since early November). Listen to Lark's Tongue in Aspic right through for the first time - Easy Money a particular favourite. Then a walk in the woods ...

And the book fell open at this page:

KEEPING THE RHYME

By stress and syllable

by change-rhyme and contour

we let the long line pace even awkward to its period.

The short line

we refine

and keep for candor.

This we remember:

ember of the fire

catches the word if we but hear

("We must understand what is happening")

and springs to desire,

a bird-right light

sound.

This is the Yule-log that warms December.

This is new grass that springs from the ground.

(Robert Duncan, The Opening of the Field)