I’ve been in London for a few days, to see family and for a reading at the Broadway Bookshop, a lovely place on Broadway Market in Hackney. Also an appearance on Poetry Breakfast, on the erotic, for Valentine’s Day. Back the day before yesterday, now slipping back into my usual writing: mornings writing and reading, afternoons: maybe more writing, maybe biking (in the Vaucluse, or walking (Paris) plus a Tai Chi class two evenings a week. I’m reading Heaney’s translations, Will Eaves’ new collection, working on Leopardi. Also reading Eli Weisel And the latest PNReview. Dorothy Wordsworth’s journal. My edition, which I bought second hand, much foxed, a little brittle. It includes the shorter poems that William was working on in the period she was writing her journal.

Weather cold and sunny. There’s a church (St Sulpice) across the street, and yesterday a team of rock climbers with helmets and ropes began placing climbing ropes on the church. I imagine they are going to do some work on the facade, without scaffolding. It’s quite wonderful to watch as they clank around the various terraces on our side of the church, or let themselves carefully down a zinc roof. Last year a staircase on the outside of our building, made of metal was cleaned and painted using a team of climbers, rather than scaffolding. That team said on the weekends they went climbing.

Working on a poem about a dental hygienist who taught me to hold my toothbrush like a Chinese calligraphy brush. I think it’s going to be fun. A poem I wrote about visits to the hammam here in Paris is in The London Magazine for February/March.

Beverley Bie Brahic