So I look out my window this morning in Montreuil and see that a pile of junk – random items like an old toaster, a keyboard, books, a broken picture frame – that someone dumped next to the tree outside my door late last night is now gone. There’s also a leaf falling in brilliant sun. And a gust of wind sweeping other fallen leaves along the street. I hear on the radio that the party of Aung San Suu Kyi (who used to be a dissident under house arrest) has won elections in Myanmar (which we used to know as Burma). Also that another corruption scandal is brewing in sports (after football/soccer, it’s track this time). And that some poets who write their poems on Twitter are selling hundreds of thousands of books, far more than any other poet ever.

This is Monday, another day in November.

Strange weather we’re having. Or is it?