Lately, my creative juices have been channelled into creating my counseling practice which includes outfitting my office. It is small and the first room I have solely designed just for me. The walls are painted a color called Aviary Blue, there are twinkle lights and pillows with ruffles and some with sequins. In the afternoon the light comes through the pine trees outside the window and makes lace patterns on the ceiling. I miss poetry, it misses me. I forced this one. At last.
On Not Waiting For It
This is the first time I have typed a poem
directly into my website page template.
There is usually a roughest draft
scratched in a journal or on a napkin,
the napkin taken from a glovebox,
then a rougher draft transcribed on my computer
which is brought into being by much
cutting and pasting,
some huffing and pacing.
It has been a month since I WROTE a poem.
It has been an hour since I felt one,
mid summer walk, the earth scritchy
around me. There was a bunny that paused
in the middle of the trail like a runway model,
blackberries, lining the catwalk, offered applause.
The poet Michael Longley said he once waited
ten years to write a poem,
that he could have used a formula,
could have MADE it happen,
but it wouldn't have been poetry.
Perhaps it is the fault of his surname.
I have waited.
Here's what came from it-
two babies thundering through my pelvis.
But two needed coaxing,
there was a point I had to bear down
when the cervix was not quite soft.
Sometimes our creative feats fall into the category
of taking out the garbage, to filling out loan applications.
Ideas accumulate like the recycling,
a fortified castle on the side of the house.
Sometimes our effort is imbued with duty and love.
It is stroking my partner's forehead when I am tired,
but he is tireder.
It is making dinner from the dregs of the refrigerator
and ending up with handmade croutons.
Most of the time our greatest moments
are akin to plunging the clogged upstairs toilet.
We don't want to, someone else should take care of it,
such courage, to do it anyway.