scribbles

Leafing through journals tonight to find something to put here…in this empty space I aim to fill each week.  I feel too dull to find fresh words, a concept behind them. I come across this from another January…………………

From a Story Circle conference, from Texas poet Lianne Mercer: a poem is a picture in your mind of a moment in your mind. Metaphor is implicit rather than explicit. Trust the process; your mind will hand you what you need. Be present at the page………………….

And from another entry, just a page futher, what I call scribbles—hurried writing to a prompt or because I see something I know I ought to put in words, and if I’m lucky, I do….

Clutter. Unraked leaves, old boards from Hurricane Rita’s threat…the back yard  a mess…overgrown, brown with fallen leaves. I go to my bench in the morning sun, sun filtered by the camphor tree that dominates the yard, making all under its great spreading limbs feeble and brown from lack of light and water. I’m moody, fractured inside, feeling without grace. And then I see one sulfur yellow daffodil’s trumpet thrusting out…the only one of its mates daring to bloom, a grace note, a horn blast, a call to me from the great unknown…here I am, always, pilgrim……….

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workshop

I came across some notes from a poetry workshop given by Texas poet Lianne Mercer: Writing is a physical thing. Let is spill out and get somewhere. Don’t think. Keep your hand moving. Have few expectations. Admit you don’t want to write so you can get past it. Be willing to take what comes. Be curious about what might come. Pause and breathe….. Good advice about more than writing.

And here’s a poem I wrote in that workshop set in the wonderful Hill Country of Texas…..

I had a boy’s body once

slim and lithe running forward

then blood came

and breasts and a burka of shoulds as old as Eve

covering spirit

covering daring

making me a girl

waiting on a man