Last fall, Down on my knees, I dug holes, put in bone meal, And planted the bulbs, Points up.

This is where the world begins and ends: the elms that die slowly, the young men in clay-cuffed Levis talking of the summer, the rainless mornings, the dry fields.

Now that the three largest Island towns have defeated a plan to create an Islandwide housing bank designed to provide more housing for year-round residents, the next step seems obvious: go back to the drawing board.