If I were writing, I would read poetry and fiction every day, and it would go exactly like this:

• Read several poems until sated or some fiction to the same.
• Write at least 30 minutes or until out of steam.
• Read nonfiction until sleep.

Yesterday I got a bad, though blisterless, burn from a misguided morning escapade in the sun. The whole bare neck, chest, and shoulders of me crimson and wrinkled in pain from a direct hit of global-warming–enhanced UV. Today, I am covered head to toe in hoodie, with the hood part cowled up around my red neck. It's coldish in the shade, which is exactly how I got into this mess. But that's what hoodies and good sense are for, and today I am vigilant. I know, for example, that if I begin to squint, it's time to move the chair, as I just did. But then, there's nothing like pain avoidance to motivate a regimen of self-preservation.

The morning and midday here might be the best parts of the day. There's an interval of respite when the ferries are docked elsewhere and the current has mellowed so that the prominent sounds are dragonfly wings shuttering in flight and the clap of dry leaves in the breeze.

—There goes an eagle just now, 200 feet out from me in my sight line, flapping arced wings four times and gliding toward a goal of some treetop perch engineered to hold the weight of a three-foot-tall bird. Even before I finish recording this observation, I can tell that it has already found its spot, as I can hear its girly-bird song announcing something or other to those who have a stake in where that imposing bird sits. This might sound strange, and perhaps I am entirely wrong, but I've noticed a marked reduction in crow squawking when an eagle is perched nearby. Meanwhile, the songbirds eke out a few notes from time to time. And, oh, now here come the ferries.