The front of our house has two small glassed-in porches, one on the first floor and one on the second. Since the windows are single-paned, we closed them off for the winter, leaving them as darn cold storage.

Our last house reminded me of a clipper ship, especially under the stars at night, with its tall and windowed cupola. This house, instead, on a hill, reminds me a lighthouse, its windows a beacon we can see all the way down into town.

The cats are happy to have the doors open to other rooms, coffee and laptop a portable office.

Aristotle, on the other hand, saw poetry as having a positive value: “It is a great thing, indeed, to make proper use of the poetic forms, . . . But the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor” (Poetics 1459a); “ordinary words convey only what we know already; it is from metaphor that we can best get hold of something fresh.” (Rhetoric 1410b)

— George Lakoff, from Metaphors We Live By

Acer on chair courtesy of Ben Hewitt