April 11, 2004
Last night, I spent three hours in front of my computer screen, wrestling with that damned #3.
In a time of previous struggle, a friend of mine reminded me that "you can't push a rope." My muse is as limp as a rope.
It's Easter Sunday. It's Spring. When does bliss become burden?
I resurrect an old poem.
Waiting for the Fall
I was never one to yearn for spring,
the sky too full of eager wings,
the air a burden of song.
Even the ground swells, straining
under a yoke of seeds.
I wake with the winds of autumn,
when a cold sun
fades the trees to clarity,
when the line of the sky
cuts clean and sharp
above the leveled land,
when the earth is a slate
set for the poet’s chalk.
Leave me in spring
to wait for the season’s passing,
and look for me then,
when I turn with the leaves
and hold my mouth
to a hungry sky.
I'm thinking that the timing of this workshop is bad. Maybe I'll go to the private session on Thursday and say I can't do it. Too much else on my plate (taking care of my mom and all). I'll bring the poem I need help with. Maybe I'll go to the workshop session as well and bring the old poem (above), bring whatever I have from my struggle with #3. Lay it all out. Without inspiration, perspiration only gets you sweaty with the dishes piled up in the sink and the unemptied cat litter smell making you nauseous.
This is the process.
Another friend of mine once commented about the bureaucracy in which we worked: "process is our most important product."
Maybe that's what blogging is. But it's not what poetry is.
Poet at Work.
Blogger at Process.
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Old Comments (1)
Kate S. on 11 Apr 2004
Happy Easter, Elaine! Sorry to hear about your struggle. I remember that feeling of frustrated angst well. There was always at least one assignment per semester/workshop that was entirely to willful for me. The struggle became an epic battle scene on a ship, me fighting the pirates, one on 33 ... waves crashing over the side smashing us all down onto the deck. That damned poem (or characterization or ending) just would not give it up, no matter what, resisting all attempts to carve it, mold it, collage it, revamp it, till usually, I just made it walk the plank ... right into the dustbin.
Good luck. Maybe if you throw that one rapscallion overboard and start over?