At the end of the week, when I write this post, I often look back at the poems that I’ve written over the past several days and feel detached from them. Inside me I feel this sense of wonder.
Where did they come from?
Did I actually write these?
Of course, I remember writing them, and I remember where I was when the ideas came to me. I remember working through the wording. But this often happens in the middle of a day.
I’ll be riding my bike to work, or backing my car into a parking space, or stepping out of the shower, or seeing something from a window, and some fragment of a poem will come to me.
I don’t sit down at a certain time and write every day. I don’t toil over them. Even when I get stuck, I just leave them unfinished and try again for five or ten minutes on another day, in the midst of everything else that is going on—feeding the baby, picking the eldest up from soccer, hurrying to my second job, washing the dishes, folding the laundry, fielding a sudden call, etc.
And so when I take a moment to see what I’ve actually produced, it’s often surprising to me.
This week, the themes feel slightly dark. Why is that? Am I dealing with something subconsciously? Is there something going on in the world around me that I’m picking up on?
I don’t know.
Creating is such a mysterious process.
In the end, the stencil is often as much, if not more of a piece of art than the print.
(1)
Every day she leaves
fresh flowers on the roadside
near a bent guardrail.
(2)
It would end today,
and we’d all be happy if
life were a movie.
(3)
My arm bears a scar,
in memory of you, whom
I once longed to keep.
(4)
Are we like the rain,
small drops returning to the sea
with talk of mountains?
(5)
Shadow before me
stretching from my feet into
this beautiful night.
(6)
When I expected
to get something in return,
I received nothing.
(7)
As we wait in line,
you let go of my hand and
smile at another.
As always, thanks for reading.
All feedback, thoughts, suggestions, criticisms, etc. are welcomed.